F 776 
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Laiyd 




The Fertile Lands 

of Colorado and 

Northern New* 'Mexico 



V* + -**- 




A Concise De s c ri ption 

of the Vast Area of Agricultural, Horticultural and 

Grazing Lands located on the Line of the 

Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 

Colorado and New Mexico. 

Full information for intending settlers as to Lands Now 
Open for Entry, or Offered for Sale, and as to the 
Present Day Opportunities in Fruit Grow- 
ing, Market Gardening, Stock Rais- 
ing, Sugar Beets and Gen- 
eral Farming. 

® J 

Written by Clarence A\ Lyman 

Twelfth Edition 
235,000 Copies 




PUBLISHED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION 
BY THE PASSENGER DEPARTMENT 

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad 

Copyrighted 1912 by 

FRANK A. WADLEIGH, General Passenger Agent, Denver 



CARSON-HARPER, DENVER 



H'fZ 




In a Grand River Valley Apple Orchard 






1^ 

©CI.A312615 




Potato Harvest on the Western Slope 




HE sole object of this book w to help people who want land to -find 
the conditions which will best suit them and which will most surely 
bring them prosperity. Written from the viewpoint not of the man 
who Wants to sell land, but from the standpoint of the landseefyer. 
"Fertile Lands of Colorado" has had a success going beyond that 
of any other booklet prepared for general free distribution. 
Requests for it come constantly from all parts of the United States 
and from all parts of the world. It is used by classes in the Colo- 
rado Agricultural College, is a standard book of reference in 
Colorado newspaper offices, has been widely quoted and recommended by 
the United States Reclamation Service, and has been adopted for distribu- 
tion by the Colorado State Bureau of Immigration. 

This edition brings the total of "Fertile Lands" printed in fourteen 
years to over a quarter of a million copies. For this edition, all parts of 
the state of Colorado have been carefully gone over, new progress noted, 
and the whole pamphlet largely rewritten and brought down to date. 
People who have read previous editions will find this, to a large extent, new 
matter, well worth their renewed attention. 

In this edition more attention has been paid to those sections which are 
just being opened for settlement, and in which the opportunities are the most 
varied, than to the sections with many years of prosperous development 
behind them. The attractions of these districts, with their sure returns, 
their close settlements, their beautiful cities and towns, make them need less 
advertising and exploitation than the newer parts of the state. 

The motive of the book is to get people to 

Come and See for Themselves. 

The rates to Colorado from eastern points are very low at all times of 
the year. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad provides very low rates for 
homeseekers to all parts of its system, and transports carload lots of emigrant 
movables practically at cost. The wonders of the scenery, the delights of 
the Colorado climate, make a trip to Colorado worth all that it may cost, 
while to many people it opens the doors of a wonderful opportunity. 



The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad is the pioneer means of transpor- 
tation in Colorado, and its lines so closely follow every valley and traverse 
every productive mesa that a map of the state can almost he drawn hy 
tracing the rails. 

The development of these beautiful and productive valleys has been 
made possible only by the courage and confidence which led to the invest- 
ment of hundreds of millions of dollars in railway lines through the most 
difficult mountain country in the world, while the low rates to market given 
the farmers in all parts of the territory are the wonder of other railroads. 
The Denver & Rio Crande Railroad will haul a carload of potatoes from 
Durango to Denver, over two mountain passes and several smaller divides, 
for a lower rate than the New York farmer, the same number of miles from 
New York City, is charged for hauling his crops, over a level country. 
The Denver & Rio Grande is actively engaged in the upbuilding of its 
territory, and in all the valleys it reaches it is recognized as the greatest 
single factor in the growth of the mountainous portion of Colorado. 

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad takes a direct and personal 
interest in the success of every settler on its lines. Men who want to choose 
a location in the state are invited to avail themselves of the help of the road. 
Write any passenger or freight representative of the company and 
tell him what you want to get, what your circumstances are, how much 
capital you can command, what section of the state and what sort of farm- 
ing appeals to you, and he will see to it that you get all available informa- 
tion and assistance and the lowest possible railway rates. 




A Twig of Delta County 
Rome Beauties 



An Orchard Home near Canon City 



The Fertile Lands of Colorado 



Chapter I. 



GETTING A HOME IN COLORADO 

THERE are three sources of land in Colorado to which the homeseeker can 
turn his attention: (1) The subdivision or re-sale of lands or farms 
already occupied and improved; (2) the opening of new tracts of land by 
irrigation, either by private parties or by the Government Reclamation Ser- 
vice; (3) homestead entry of Government lands, or the purchase of Indian 
lands. 

The amount of capital required to take hold of a piece of land under either 
of these three methods is about the same. Colorado is no new state, but has 
been settled for more than a quarter of a century. Most of the choicer loca- 
tions have long since been proved up on, irrigated, improved and farmed. But 
methods of farming have changed. Time and experience have shown that the 
man on the forty acre farm, or even the ten or twenty acre farm close in, 
often makes more money than the man with a quarter section of land in a 
more remote section, so that in all the most fertile valleys a diligent man can 
find good land, well fertilized and tilled, for sale in small tracts on easy terms. 

On the other hand, the man who goes further out, buys more land and 
farms it and gets it into condition has before him the certainty that in time 
he, too, can sell out three forties of his quarter section at a big profit, retain 
the other forty and be in a comparatively short time the owner of a highly 
improved, productive, close-in piece of land, and have money in the bank 
besides. 

How to Seek a Good Location 

The only wise way for any man is to COME AND SEE FOR HIMSELF. 
A still wiser plan is to bring his wife along. There are many considerations 
besides those of soil fertility, seasons and markets. A woman wants to know 
the environments into which she is going to bring herself and her children. 
The valleys of Colorado are settled with the highest class of American people, 
intelligent, with good schools, good churches and stores, and with every ele- 
ment that makes good social advantages, and a woman wants to know these 
things while her husband is looking up the possible sources of income. 

Generally speaking, the landseeker will fare best who gets his land 
through an established and reputable real estate man or colonization agency. 
There are in every community lands and locations that are better than other 
lands and locations, but the newcomer may not be able to detect the difference. 
A wise decision, in a new country, is to get the BEST, letting considerations 
of price into the background. In most Colorado valleys the range of prices is 
pretty well established and sales are proceeding fast enough to keep the mar- 
ket cleared. There are, of course, from time to time, extraordinary bargains 
to be picked up. But oftener, if lands are offered at prices considerably below 
the standard, there is likely to be something considerably the matter with 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



them. An established reputable firm can succeed only by being surrounded 
by pleased customers, and is therefore much more likely to permanently sat- 
isfy a newcomer than the man who is about leaving the country, and has no 
permanent office or responsibility. Many of the companies developing land 
in Colorado maintain their own colonization bureaus, and not only see to it 
that a customer is well located, but attend to the details of moving him out, 
building him a house and barn and showing him how to get started. 

Necessary Area, Prices and Terms of Land 

The agricultural lands of Colorado lie all the way from 4,000 to 8,000 feet 
above sea level. The climatic conditions are not absolutely controlled by the 
altitude, but are very greatly affected. Other factors are protecting hills, 




Colorado Farm Homes, Uncompahgre Valley — Prosperity and Contentment 

slope, air drainage and air currents. The range of crops, following the eleva- 
tions, is from almost sub-tropical to the north temperate zone. In some low, 
warm valleys, close to markets and railway facilities, ten acres is plenty for 
a diligent man. In other locations eighty acres or a quarter section is needed 
to provide for a family's needs. In general, the price of land follows the area 
necessary. For instance, a quarter section with water rights in some of the 
higher and more remote valleys can be bought for $4,000, while the same 
amount will buy only from ten to twenty acres of raw land in the richly pro- 
ductive sections about Canon City, Grand Junction, Delta, Paonia or Montrose. 
The price of first class irrigated land in Colorado ranges as low as $30 
for land and water rights in some of the more remote sections, to as high as 
$3,000 an acre for highly improved and developed orchard tracts, in bearing, 
in the lower valleys and close to the means of transportation. Good general 
farming land, with water rights, suitable for alfalfa, potatoes and sugar beets, 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



will cost from $50 to $150 per acre. Of such land, eighty acres to a quarter 
section is about the unit. Lands of which from ten to forty acres is enough 
to provide a good living are generally classified as fruit lands, and sell at from 
$125 to $400 per acre for raw lands. On nearly all lands sold in Colorado easy 
terms are made. Usually the first payment is one-fourth to one-half, and the 
balance is distributed in installments which a diligent farmer ought to be able 
to meet out of the profits of his farming. 

The Cost of Getting Started 

It costs less to get started in Colorado than in many sections, because 
the state enjoys an out-of-door climate. There is rarely any really severe 
weather. If the thermometer drops to or below zero the air will be calm, so 
that a flimsy wall of boards and paper will keep warmer than a thick wall 
in an Eastern blizzard. There is less need of house room than where the 
whole family may be "housebound" for a week at a time. So, many families 
who thought ten rooms too small for them in the East find entire comfort and 
convenience in four or five rooms on a Colorado farm. The same rule applies 
in building barns and houses for stock. 

The routes to prosperity are many. In the more thickly settled sections 
there is always a scarcity of good labor. Many a man in the rich valleys of 
the Western Slope, now the owner of a productive farm and enjoying a certain 
income, arrived with only a few hundred dollars, got a foothold, worked his 
own place, worked for others. His wife and children packed fruit in the 
orchards of his neighbors who had "arrived." His hens paid his grocery bills. 
Other men have gone into localities then remote and unsettled, bought land 
cheap and on easy terms, developed it, waited for the railroad and other 
facilities that certainly come with development, and then have sold part of 
their land, and in the balance each has the basis of an independent fortune. 

It takes some cash capital to come to Colorado and begin owning a place, 
but with COURAGE and PLUCK and PERSEVERANCE success is reasonably 
sure. POPULATION is what the valleys of Colorado need. MEN and WOMEN 
are at a PREMIUM. If a man of small means will come into any Colorado 
community, work hard, do his best, keep on trying, he is sure to succeed, and 
he and his family need never want for food or shelter while they are striving. 

A man with $2,000 to $2,500 working capital — the price of a modest house 
in an ordinary city or town — can go to any valley in Colorado, get land as 
good as the best on terms that he can meet out of the crops, and live comfort- 
ably while his place is paying the rest of its purchase price out of the crops 
and profits. 

The average renter on an Eastern farm has enough money in surplus 
stock, implements and working capital to come West and own for himself a 
place which will pay twice the profits that the Eastern farm is paying. He 
can live just as well as he lives on his profits as a renter, and be independent 
in ten years or less. 

Irrigation Is Not Hard Work 

An argument against irrigation farming often brought forward (by people 
who have rainfall land to sell) is that irrigation is very hard work, and that 
it is very hard for a new man to learn to irrigate. Both these statements are 
absurdly false. The science of irrigation has greatly developed in the last 
ten years. The days when a farmer slopped about in hip boots with an enor- 
mous head of water are mostly past. The irrigation farmer now prepares his 
land before the water comes, keeps it moving steadily and evenly over the 
land, and often keeps on with his work of cultivating other crops while the 
water is flowing. 

The amount of time that irrigation takes is about one-third the time 
that the rainfall farmer loses by rains when he ought to be working, and by 



8 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 




Irrigating a recently planted Orchard in the Canon City District 

bad roads when he wants to haul his stuff. The crops by irrigation (accord- 
ing to the United States Government) average a little more than fifty per 
cent, more than the crops by rainfall. Following are the census figures: 

United States Irrigated 
at Large Lands 

Barley, bushels 20.4 30.3 

Oats, bushels 29.6 31.4 

Wheat, bushels 12.3 19.0 

Potatoes, bushels 80.8 114.3 

Hay, tons 1.28 2.16 

Irrigating Water Rights 

The success of farming depends upon irrigation. In very few parts of the 
state is there enough natural rainfall most years to insure success with more 
than a very narrow range of products. Experience year by year is demon- 
strating that too much water has been used in the past, and less irrigation 
and more cultivation is the watchword that has produced the best and highest 
quality crops. Nevertheless, the irrigation farmer must have water when 
he needs it, all summer and every summer. 

The matter of water rights is not complicated and is not difficult to 
understand. Any honest man with an honest water right can explain it to 
the satisfaction of a man who has never seen irrigation before. A man who 
has a good water right can PROVE IT. 

The right to take water from any stream depends upon what is called 
PRIORITY. This means that the man or company who built the first ditch 
from a stream has the PRIOR right to fill that ditch, before any later comers 
can fill theirs. If there is more than enough water for "Number One," Num- 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



ber Two gets it. If there is enough water for the first dozen ditches and no 
more, then the thirteenth ditch will get none. The regulation of the streams 
is done by a deputy state engineer, under rigid laws. Position near the head 
of the stream or near its foot does not make any difference. The construction 
of any number of ditches after your ditch is drawing water cannot affect its 
priority. The Government ditches built by the Reclamation Service must 
take their turn the same as though built by private parties. 

Most Colorado rivers flow an abundance of water while the snows are 
melting, from May until July, enough for all ditches. For nearly all crops, 
late July and August is a very vital time for irrigation, and so most of the 
later priorities on the smaller streams are or should be protected by reservoirs. 
The value of a priority depends largely upon the size of the stream, and this 
in turn depends upon the area of the watershed drained by the stream. For 
instance, the tenth ditch out of a big river like the Grand or the Gunnison 
might be a better water right than the first ditch out of a small side stream 
with no reservoir behind it. 

Hope and Experience 

HOPE is always cheaper than experience. Land and water rights under 
a "projected" irrigation system are always offered cheaper than under a ditch 
that has been in successful operation for years. A good many people have 
come to Colorado, bought land and water rights under a project, and have 
in time developed that hope into grateful experience, under a completed, 
tested and successful water system. Other projects have found insuperable 
obstacles to completion, even though started in perfect good faith. It is all 



illllilitlllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltllllllllllllilllllllllllllU!^ 

5 

If a POOR man, tuys POOR land, and pays for it | 

He is still POOR. | 

If a poor man can buy good land, no matter what the 
price, on terms tnat he can meet from SURE CROPS, = 
^Vken lie gets it paid for, ne is no longer poor. = 

'Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



right for any man to sell land and water under a PROJECTED irrigation 
system, but the intending locator should understand clearly and definitely 
whether he is buying something proved and tested by time and experience, 
or something based upon an engineer's report and a promoter's expectations. 
There is now on the market in Colorado more than three hundred thousand 
acres of land of PROVED AND TESTED QUALITY and under PROVED 
AND TESTED IRRIGATION SYSTEMS which have been in operation for a 
series of years. About the same amount is being developed under various 
projects, but only a small proportion of this has been offered for sale. 

The only safe place for a man to judge of a water supply is on the 
ground. If he sees evidence of continuous prosperity, with a variety of crops, 
all prospering in their seasons, indications are of a continuous and reliable 
water supply. If the proposition is a new one, compare conditions with the 
nearest developed sections, compare soils, slope and drainage, and thoroughly 
investigate the sources of water supply, the ditches and reservoirs, the priority 
in the river and the size and reliability of the stream. This is not so hard to 



io THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



do as it sounds. Reliable land selling concerns always have these facts pre- 
pared and on hand for the information of intending settlers. 

When a man can get on easy terms a farm that is sure to produce and 
has a certainty that he can sell his product for a good price, that man can 
afford to go into debt. This is the point of land buying in Colorado. While 
the prices quoted may look high, the terms of sale are always easy. A man 
of small means can get a foothold, and be certain that the years will bring in 
enough to support him and his family, and at the same time clear off the 
debt. At the end of the journey he will be far richer than if he had bought 
poor land, remote from markets, "cheap," because when he gets the "cheap" 
land paid for he still has nothing that can compare with a Colorado irrigated 
farm. 



Chapter II. 



WHY COLORADO IS THE BEST 

I AND literature is all very much alike. The man who decides to seek a 
. new home and who sends to all the advertised sections for information 
will get a stack of pamphlets and circulars and pictures, all telling about 
the same story of bonanza returns, of matchless climate and of crop certainties. 
To visit ALL the places would exhaust the resources of the average landseeker 
before he bought an acre, and would take a year's time. But there are certain 
GOOD REASONS why Colorado is the BEST. These are reasons which a man 
can follow out for himself, and KNOW that they are based upon FACTS. 

Markets and Profits 

It is not what a man RAISES that counts ; it is what he SELLS and gets 
the MONEY for. Take a map of the United States' and note the position of 
the state of Colorado. Of all the irrigated sections, it is the nearest to the 
great markets of the East and Middle West. 

Look over a census report and study the HOME MARKETS of Colorado. 
There are in the mountains and mining camps more than fifty thousand 
miners in the precious-metal mines. These men, with their families, make 
a population of more than 150,000 people dependent upon the valleys below 
for all they eat — well paid, able to get the best and accustomed to it. 

On the lower slopes nearly the same number of men are employed in 
coal mining, coke burning and allied lines. 

Denver, with a population rapidly approaching a quarter of a million 
people, is developing into the great commercial, manufacturing and financial 
capital of the whole Rocky Mountain region. Pueblo, with more than 60,000 
people, with the largest independent steel plant in the world, with smelters, 
iron works, manufactories and railroad shops, is another enormous market for 
Colorado products. 

Thousands on thousands of people come to Colorado every year for health 
and pleasure, and the number of tourists and healthseekers, both winter and 
summer, is steadily increasing. President Roosevelt called Colorado "The 
Playground of the Nation." With its wonders of seenery, an ideally perfect 
climate, cloudless skies, twenty-five times as many lofty peaks as all the 
Alps, great wildernesses full of game, streams full of trout, Colorado attracts 
every year more and more people on pleasure bent, and those who came before 
come again. The tourist trade leaves in Colorado every year several mil- 
lions of dollars, of which at least one- fourth goes dirfictly to the farmers and 
orchardists for their products. And this tourist trade is growing much faster 
than is the irrigated and farmed area of the state. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



1 1 



Products That Keep 

Another great factor in the continuous prosperity of Colorado farmers 
is that most of the staple products of Colorado farms have great keeping 
quality. In some of the humid, tropical parts of the United States great 
profits per acre have been made from perishable crops such as fresh onions, 
tomatoes, lettuce or strawberries. But, to make a profit, the farmer who 
raises this line of produce must see it sold the day it hits the market. A 
great deal is said of the profits when the farmer does hit the market. Nothing 
is said of the losses when the markets are glutted and the perishable stuff 
is ruined. Colorado products, on the contrary, are mostly of the kind that 
will keep in fine shape until the market is right. One of the great advan- 
tages of a very dry climate, coupled with irrigation, is this ability to give all 
products KEEPING QUALITY. 

If the market is bare of any product, anything will sell, but the best 
product will bring the highest prices. If the market is full, then the BEST 
will always SELL FIRST. Colorado products of all kinds have an established 
and growing reputation of QUALITY. They are GOOD TO EAT. They are 
ALWAYS good. There are definite reasons why products raised on soil rich 
in mineral salts, with the sunshine constant, with water applied only as 
needed, should be better than crops that depend upon the vagaries of uncertain 
weather conditions for their quality. 

The climate of Colorado is not only beneficial to growing plants, but it is 
good for men and women. The diseases common to moist climates — asthma, 
tuberculosis, rheumatism, malaria, ague, catarrh, nervous depression, anaemia — 
soon disappear in the bright sunshine and the dry air. Scientific experiments, 
using a large number of people as tests, have shown that in the higher alti- 




1ft 




Pear Orchard in the Grand River Valley 
From these sixty trees, covering less than one-half acre, $1,196.00 was realized 

in one season 



12 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



tudes there immediately appear a greater number of red corpuscles in the 
blood, and the blood remains richer all the time the patient is in the higher 
altitude. 

To sum up, the reasons why Colorado is the best state in the Union for 
a man to come to to make a farm home are: 

1. The crops ARE larger and of better quality. 

2. The markets are better, quicker and surer than in any other irrigated 
country. 

3. The climate is pleasanter, healthier, more invigorating. 



Chapter III. 



THE RECIPE FOR COLORADO QUALITY 

THERE are four ingredients in the recipe which makes the Colorado qual- 
ity in fruits and vegetables. They are: 

1. A fertile soil, very rich in MINERALS. 

2. Continuous bright sunshine, with much greater actinic or chemical 
properties than in a humid climate. 

3. Cool air and cool nights. Dry air and rapid evaporation. 

4. The ability, through irrigation, to supply water just as needed and 
only as needed by the growing plant. 

Geological History of Colorado Soil 

Colorado is the crest of the American continent. From its mountain 
ranges flow four great river systems — the Platte-Missouri on the north, the 
Arkansas to the east, the Rio Grande to the south, and the Colorado River to 
the west. Above the high plateaus and plains tower mountain ranges nearly 
three miles above the level of the sea — upheaved, twisted, contorted masses 
of rocks. 

Through these monster ranges the rivers in millions of years have cut 
great gorges and canons, wearing away equally the primeval granites, the 
limestones that ages ago were coral islands on the prehistoric seas, the quartz- 
ites and lavas, the beds of iron ores, gold and silver, potash and phosphorus, 
sulphur and sodium — all the mineral elements cast up from the depths of the 
earth's crust in the great creative agony. 

When the volcanic masses had cooled, great glaciers succeeded the torrents 
of water, grinding, grinding, grinding through thousands of centuries, reducing 
the rocks to powder, mixing and blending them, and from the glaciers flowed 
streams which carried out the finely ground materials and deposited them in 
the table lands and valleys that are now Colorado agricultural lands. 

Gradually the climate changed. The glaciers receded as they melted. The 
lofty peaks were still bathed in snow and ice, which, melting, forms the rivers 
of today, but the desert moved in upon the lower slopes. While the prairies 
and valleys of the East through millions of years have been bearing an annual 
crop of forest, or grass, or weeds, or farm crops, these deserts have lain dry, 
no water leaching through them to take out their fertility, no crops above to 
render the mineral qualities soluble. 

The farmer who plows up one of these sagebrush wastes is plowing really 
"virgin soil." It possesses all its original mineral ingredients. It awaits only 
the touch of water to become fertile. There is only one ingredient missing in 
Colorado soils, and that is NITROGEN. But there are certain plants — the 
bean family — alfalfa, clovers, peas and beans — which can draw nitrogen from 
the air and store it in the soil for the benefit of succeeding crops, and these 
crops all do their very best on a highly mineralized soil. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



13 



All over the East farmers are buying powdered limestone by the ton, 
hauling it out upon their fields, to restore the mineral fertility. Ages ago 
the rivers and glaciers of Colorado ground limestone rock into an impalpable 
powder and blended it with the soil. Analyses of the top soils in the Grand 
Valley, for example, show that in the top layer of soil there is more than 
ninety tons of powdered limestone to each acre. 

Millions of acres of land in Colorado, tinged a dull red by iron, give fruits 
and vegetables a high color and a rich flavor that other soils cannot approach. 
Do you want potash? Potash in Eastern and European soils is so sought for 
that the United States and Germany have almost "had words" because Ger- 
many has enormous deposits of potash and wants to keep it at home to fer- 




Giving Water Just as Needed. A Headgate in Southwestern Colorado 

tilize her own fields. Granite is composed of quartz, feldspar and mica, and 
feldspar is a potash salt. Ages ago the glaciers extracted the potash from the 
granite in Colorado, and the rivers freighted it into the soils. Phosphorus 
came from the lava beds, gypsum from the ancient geysers that piled up 
enormous mountains of it along all the foothills. 

So here you have the first ingredient of your recipe for quality, in a 
wonderfully fertile soil, rich in minerals. 



Continuous Bright Sunshine 

The sun shines in Colorado some 320 days a year, on an average. It is 
when the sun is shining that plants and fruits and vegetables make then- 
best and quickest growth. Take a cloudy, rainy growing season in the humid 
sections, and apples are sour ard poorly colored, vegetables are insipid, grain 
is soft and poorly filled. The sun has an actual chemical action in plant 
growth. The roots find tbe nutriment in the soil below, the sap carries it to 
the leaves and fruits above, and the sunshine fixes it in permanent form. 

There is not only more sunshine in Colorado, but it is brighter sunshine. 
The chemical action of the light is measured by the effect on a photographic 
plate. All amateur photographers coming to Colorado overexpose their pic- 
tures — let in too much light. It tak^s only half the time to make a "snap- 
shot" in Colorado. This means that the chemical energy which the sun is 
pouring into plants and fruits and men and women is doubled in Colorado. 
The sun shines twice as much, and does twice as much good when it does 
shine. Is it any wonder that Colorado crops, on rich soil, grow fast and attain 
high quality? 



H THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Cool Nights and Dry Air 

Colorado vegetation GROWS ONLY WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING. As 
has been explained, there is twice as much sunshine in Colorado and that 
sunshine is twice as powerful. In the East, after a hot day comes a hot 
night. The earth is bathed in steam. The air is motionless. Plants keep 
right on growing in the darkness, without the sunshine to fix the nutriment 
the roots are pumping into the leaves. That makes a weak and flabby growth, 
a watery flavor. But in Colorado the minute the sun goes down the ther- 
mometer drops, ten to thirty degrees. The whole world breathes a sigh of 
relief. Weary men can sleep in comfort the night through. Plants quit 
growing. All Nature rests. 

The extraordinary firmness and juiciness of Colorado fruit are due to 
these cool nights. The regions where the nights are warm and moist cannot 
produce the crispness and firmness and juiciness and flavor of the Colorado 
apple or peach. 

Colorado dry air also helps plants grow. The roots pick up the materials 
in a watery solution — the sap — and this sap is evaporated by the leaves, leav- 
ing the solid particles as part of the plant. In a humid climate the leaves can 
throw off the surplus moisture only very slowly. In Colorado the surplus 
water is taken up by the air instantly, stimulating the flow of sap. 

Giving Water Just as Needed 

With wonderful mineral riches in his soil, with the ability to provide 
nitrogen as needed, with constant sunshine, dry air, cool nights, the Colorado 
farmer stands at the lever of a perfect machine for producing QUALITY, and 
this lever is the headgate of his irrigating ditch. Water can be supplied just 
as needed to produce the very acme of quality. Nothing need be left to 
chance. In the same field, the farmer can push water on his cabbages to make 
them head up, and hold the water off his tomatoes to make them ripen all 
together. He can "dry" off his grain field until it crackles to make it "stool," 
and, when he has the desired number of stalks, can push them with plenty of 
water until the heads are filled, and then dry off the crop for harvest. 

A touch of water just before picking gives apples an extra polish and 
juiciness. Skillful irrigation can actually retard the blossoming period. The 
starting and "setting" of a potato crop are largely matters of judicious irriga- 
tion. In a hundred ways the irrigation farmer holds control of forces which 
with the rainfall farmer are simply casts of the dice. 

And because of this control, irrigation farming is actually very much 
easier for a city man to understand than rainfall farming. An irrigation 
farm can be run like a manufactory. If the Colorado farmer decides to cut 
his alfalfa next week Thursday, next week Thursday will hear the mower 
rattling down the field. 



Chapter IV. 



THE TRIUMPHS OF COLORADO QUALITY IN THE MARKETS AND IN 

COMPETITION 

THIS supremacy of the Colorado product is no mere matter of saying so, 
but is a matter of absolute record. There are two ways by which prod- 
ucts of any section of the country can be measured against those of the 
rest of the world. One of these is the great national fairs or expositions, and 
the other is in the markets of the country. 

Colorado has had four chances since agriculture and fruit growing have 
been well established to measure her progress against that of the rest of the 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



15 




A Few Cups Awarded Western Slope Exhibits at various State and National Shows 

country. These were at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, at the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, at the Lewis and. Clark Exposition 
at Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 1905, and at the national competitions 
of the National Horticultural Congress at Council Bluffs, in the falls of 1910 
and 1911. 

At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, of 371 exhibits from the state of 
Colorado, 81 special premiums were awarded, covering wheat, oats, rye, barley, 
potatoes, flax, seeds, flowers, grasses, wool, woods and soil. The wheat exhibit 
attracted wide attention and 25 awards were given to it alone — the largest 
number received by any one state of the Union. 

At the St. Louis Fair of 1904 the triumph of Colorado was even more 
marked. Three grand prizes were given for exhibitions of the product of 
orchards and apiaries, and for fruits of various kinds there were 19 gold 
medals and 282 other awards. Colorado took either first or second prize on 
every variety of fruit exhibited, and a greater proportion than any other state 
in the Union. In agriculture Colorado secured four of the grand prizes — one 
for grains^ grasses and forage plants, one for vegetables, one for potatoes and 
one for general installation. Besides this, in this section were 84 gold medals 
and 282 silver and bronze medals. No two other states in the Union secured 
as many prizes in these classes as did Colorado. 

At the Portland Fair the rivalry was even keener than in the East. The 
Portland Fair was designed to bring forward the attractions of the great 
Northwest, which is just being settled, and which bases its claims for atten- 
tion upon the high quality of the product of its fields and orchards. Word 
had been sent out to the valleys of Idaho and of Oregon, of Washington and 
California, to send in their very best, and the collection in the showcases 
easily surpassed even the showing made at Chicago and St. Louis. 

The Colorado agricultural and horticultural exhibit was composed in part 
of the same exhibits sent to St. Louis, and in part of new additions from that 
season's crops. As at St. Louis and Chicago, there was practically no compe- 
tition in any class in which Colorado was an exhibitor, and this state carried 



16 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



off more than twice as many prizes as all its neighbors combined. The follow- 
ing table shows what the awards of prizes were in the agricultural and fruit 
sections at the Portland Fair: 

Honorable 

STATES Awards Gold Silver Bronze Mention 

California 28 23 3 1 1 

Colorado 506 248 145 69 44 

Idaho 67 58 9 

Utah 1 1 

Washington 75 

Wyoming 137 .85 22 9 11 

In the summer of 1907 a collection of Colorado productions — fruits, grains 
and grasses — was sent to the various state fairs in the Middle Western 
states, through the co-operation of the Colorado State Commercial Association 
and the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Wherever exhibited the Colorado col- 
lection concededly eclipsed anything shown by any of the states, and at the 
Missouri State Fair at Springfield, although not a contestant, a special blue 
ribbon of first award was pinned above the Colorado exhibit. 

In the fall of 1910 the National Horticultural Congress, representing fruit 
growers all over the United States, held its annual convention in Council 
Bluffs, Iowa. A feature of the congress was the exhibition in competition of 
fruit specimens. The exhibition feature had been little advertised, but more 
than 7,000 entries were made from sixteen states. Delta County, Colorado, 
was among those showing, and carried away more than half of all the prizes, 
taking first in forty-two of fifty varieties of apples and pears exhibited. 

In the fall of 1911 the congress and competition was repeated in Council 
Bluffs. Judges of national fame were chosen, representing all parts of the 
country. Apples and pears were shown from twenty-three states. The entire 
Northwest was on hand with carloads and carloads of apples. In deference 
to the exhibitors from Eastern states, who complained that too much attention 
had been given to exterior appearances and not enough to quality, the scale 
of points for judging was made to allow liberally for texture, flavor and eating 
quality. Under these conditions, Mesa, Montrose, Delta and Montezuma coun- 
ties, Colorado, took more prizes than all the rest of the United States put 
together. The tables were simply blue with ribbons and brilliant with silver 
trophies. 

Triumphs in the Markets 

These same triumphs of high quality are shown in the markets. Hun- 
dreds of carloads of Western Slope cantaloupes through the summer and fall 
of 1910, and again in 1911, were shipped to the markets of New York and 
Philadelphia, So superior were they in flavor and texture and sweetness to 
anything on the market that the farmers of the Grand Valley got a higher 
price per crate, AFTER paying the freight to New York, and AFTER paying 
commissions, and icing and expenses, than the growers of New Jersey could 
get for their melons, delivered in New York. 

More than 4,000 carloads of Western Slope potatoes in the fall of 1911 
were contracted for in the East, the buyers willingly paying the increased 
freight bills in order to get potatoes of uniform size, mealiness and flavor. 

Some growers on the Western Slope have even wrapped their potatoes in 
paper, packed them in boxes like fruit, and found a profitable market for them 
in the fancy groceries of New York. 

The same conditions which bring high quality in vegetables produce it in 
the animal kingdom. For two years in succession Montrose County has taken 
the first grand prize for carload of beef cattle at the International Stock Show 
in Chicago. 

Pea-fed hogs from the San Luis Valley steadily command a premium over 
the corn-fed porkers, because of the superior flavor and texture of their meat. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



17 



"Mountain apples," as the product of Colorado's Western Slope orchards 
is called in Southern California, are the standard for apple quality in Los 
Angeles and other California cities. In Chicago, in the winter of 1910-11, 
Grand Valley Jonathans were bringing from 65 to 85 cents per box more than 
Northwest Jonathans of the same grade, simply because of superior flavor 
and texture. 

Colorado horses and mules, raised in high altitudes, have shown so much 
superiority in wind, endurance and vitality that the Agricultural Department 
of the Federal Government is spending large sums of money in breeding experi- 
ments calculated to produce a Colorado type of driving horse. 



Chapter V. 



FRUIT RAISING IN COLORADO— THE TRIUMPH OF THE ORCHARD 

HEATERS 

COLORADO produced the first irrigated fruit in the United States. It was 
in the valleys of the Western Slope that it was first shown what won- 
derful results in size and quality and flavor might be attained by the 
combination of sunshine, rich soil and moisture control. Since then the entire 
irrigated West has taken up the cultivation of fruit. 

After a quarter of a century Colorado remains the banner fruit state of 
the Union. Other localities may be able to produce a few varieties of high 
color and flavor, or many varieties of high color but poor flavor, but neither 
in market returns nor in competitions have any of these been able to compete 
with the products of Colorado orchards. 

About one-fourth of the annual agricultural output of Colorado — if meas- 
ured in dollars and cents — comes from the fruit farms. More and more fruit 
trees are being planted every year, more trees planted in the last decade are 



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When the New "Crop Insurance" Pays — Seldom necessary, but Effective when needed 



18 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



coming into bearing every year, ho that it seems safe to say that ten years 
from the present time will find that orchards of the state are producing more 
annually than the gold mines ever did. 

The Oi chard Heaters 

This prediction can be made with much greater certainty since in the last 
three years it has been established that the Colorado orchardists need have no 
more fear of their worst enemy of the past — spring frosts. In the spring of 
1907 most of the orchard sections of the state had a very early spring, so early 
that apricots were in bloom in most sheltered locations by March 1. Later 
there came the usual cold waves, with the result that millions of dollars' 
worth of fruit was blasted in the bud. In 1908 a few enterprising and coura- 
geous men, scattered over the fruit country, determined to try orchard heaters 
or "smudge pots" with which to fight the frosts, in case they came. Again 
there was an early spring, and again cold weather in late April. But where 
the heaters were used the crops were entirely saved. The result was that, in 
1909, spring found thousands of acres of orchards fully equipped with the 
heaters. The spring of 1909 was the coldest in point of temperatures that 
the fruit districts had ever known in twenty-five years' experience. But again 
the orchard heaters proved entirely capable of handling Jack Frost. It can 
now be taken as an accepted fact that a Colorado orchard in the fruit belt can 
be depended upon for a crop every year if the owner will simply provide him- 
self with a means of protection. 

The cold waves which brought disaster to the orchards that were not 
protected by heaters were not 'ocaJ to the Colorado valleys, but extended 
generally over the United States. But where Colorado enjoys a peculiar 
advantage is that the cold came without violent winds, and it is possible to 
heat an orchard and hold the heat in the trees. Heaters have been sold to all 
parts of the country, but only from the orchards of Colorado have come 
reports of uniform success in saving fruit crops. 

There are two types of boaters used by Colorado orchardists, burning coal 
and crude oil respectively. Yhe coal heaters seem to have some advantage in 
cost of fuel, while the oil \eaters claim supremacy in the production of heat 
and quickness and ease oi operation. 

The coal heaters are sheet iron or wire baskets. A knot of waste soaked 
in oil is placed at the bottom, over this a supply of dry wood, and on top 
about ten pounds of coal. When the alarm of falling temperatures comes to 
the orchard owner he lights the oil-soaked waste, and in a few minutes the 
whole mass of coals is glowing, radiating a large amount of heat, while the 
smoke, rising into the upper branches of the trees, acts as a blanket and 
prevents radiation. 

The oil heaters are of various patterns, ranging from a mere sheet iron 
bucket, about as large as a ten-pound lard bucket, up to elaborate and compli- 
cated argand burners. The cost of equipping an orchard with heaters, includ- 
ing a year's fuel supply, ranges from $25 to $45 an acre. Once equipped, the 
heaters will last indefinitely, and the average cost of this crop insurance need 
rarely exceed $5 per acre per annum, including fuel and labor. As an average 
crop of fruit in Colorado is generally worth from $300 to $1,000 per acre net, 
it will be seen that the cost of the insurance is relatively very slight. 

The Colorado Fruit Belt 

With the exception of a few well sheltered valleys of the Eastern 
Slope, the fruit regions of Colorado are all upon the Pacific side of 
the range. The Western Slope in Colorado enjoys a very different climate 
from the K astern Slope. The storms and cold waves which start in Manitoba 
and the Canadian Northwest and sweep down east of the Rockies very seldom 
cross the :ange. The climate of the Western Slope is akin to the mild climate 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



19 



of the Pacific Coast, both in summer and in winter. There is very little cloudy 
weather or rainfall. The valleys are most of them deeply cut into the sur- 
rounding mountains and are so sheltered from winds or violent weather of 
any kind. While the days are warm, the nights are cool. 

These conditions, combined with a large supply of irrigating water, are 
absolutely ideal for the production of the finest quality in fruit. The steady 
sunshine puts the color on peaches and apples and pears; the dry climate 
enables the orchardist to keep all insects and other tree parasites extermi- 
nated, as few rains come to wash the protective poisons from the blossoms 
and leaves. The richness of the soil gives quality and flavor, the cool nights 
make the fruit firm and juicy, while irrigation enables the farmer to control 
the supply of water and so keep up the quality. 

Colorado Apples 
The apple is the great staple fruit crop of Colorado. It is grown on both 
slopes, and as high as 7,000 feet in elevation. In addition to superlative quali- 
ties of color and flavor, the Colorado apple has also an unequaled keeping 




Colorado Winter Banana Apples. First Prize at National Apple Show 
This box sold for $52.00 

quality. Colorado apples have been shipped across the country and across the 
Atlantic, put in cold storage in London, and taken out in perfect condition 
after a year. The average farmer can build a "dugout" cellar in his own back 
yard and store his crop without loss until spring, and then command a high 
price. This advantage has been estimated to add an average of 50 cents a 
box to the value of Colorado apples over the apples raised in less favored 
places. 

The Market for Apples 

The present demand for apples in the United States, including those used 
for export and for making vinegar, is placed by the Department of Agriculture 
at 55,000,000 barrels. That is, if that many apples were raised in this country 
there would be no oversupply. 

The export demand is growing every year. The demand for apples in the 
United States is also increasing in proportion to the population. On the other 
hand, the annual crop is steadily falling off. The principal reason for the 
decrease lies in the fact that in the far East — New York, New England, Penn- 
sylvania and Ohio — the farmers have quit planting trees, and the old orchards 



20 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



are dying out. In that humid and uncertain climate, with forests and hedge- 
rows making unlimited shelter for insect pests and breeding places for the 
germ diseases of trees, it has been found that, taking a term of years, orchards 
do not pay a profit on the cost of raising the trees. 

The figures of the Department of Agriculture on apple production since 
1895 are as follows: 

Total Crop, Market Demand, Surplus, Deficiency, 

Year. Barrels. Barrels. Barrels. Barrels. 

1895 59,000,000 45,000,000 14,000,000 

1896 68,000,000 48,000,000 20,000,000 

1897 42,000,000 50,000,000 8,000,000 

1898 22,500,000 50,000,000 27,500,000 

1899 38,000,000 50,000,000 12,000,000 

1900 47,500,000 52,000,000 4,500,000 

1901 27,500,000 52,000,000 24,500,000 

1902 45,000,000 53,000,000 8,000,000 

1903 44,000,000 53,000,000 9,000,000 

1904 44,000,000 53,000,000 9,000,000 

1905 24,000,000 53,000,000 29,000,000 

1906 35,500,000 54,000,000 18,500,000 

1907 25,000,000 54,000,000 29,000,000 

1908 24,500,000 55,000,000 30,500,000 

1909 27,000,000 55,000,000 28,000.000 

1910 26,000,000 55,000,000 29,000,000 

It will be seen from these figures that in the last twelve years there has 
been only one — -1900 — when the supply of apples approached the demand, that 
the average deficiency of supply under the normal demand for apples in the 
United States has been almost 17,500,000 barrels. Indications, so far as the 
East is concerned, are that the supply will continue to shrink. The passage 
of the national pure food law has increased the demand for apples for making 
vinegar some 3,000,000 barrels, as sulphuric acid and water can no longer 
masquerade as "cider vinegar." The export demand has been greatly increased 
since the Western apples, free from worms, and packed in boxes, have been 
available, and it is predicted that inside ten years Europe will be using 
annually 10,000,000 boxes, equivalent to 4,000,000 barrels, of American apples. 

The total possible output of all the Western apple growing locations, 
including Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Washington, if all the fruit valleys were 
planted solidly in apples, has been closely estimated at 25,000.000 boxes, or 
10,000,000 barrels. This is probably twice as large a figure as the actual pro- 
duction will ever reach, but even at that it is 7,000,000 less than the average 
deficiency. 

The varieties of apples which have proved to be best adapted to Colorado 
conditions are Jonathan, Winesap, Gano, Borne Beauty, Delicious, Winter 
Banana, Missouri Pippin, White Winter Pearmain, Minkler, Mcintosh Red, 
Arkansas Black, Mammoth Black Twig and Grimes Golden. There are more 
than twenty other kinds recognized by the Fruit Growers' Associations, but 
it is safe to say that ninety per cent, of the orchards planted in the last three 
years have been limited to some of these kinds. 



Colorado Peaches 

Peaches have been for fifteen years the bonanza fruit crop of Colorado. 
The peach has harder competition to overcome than the apple, as it does not 
keep the year around, and has to take the current price on the markets when 
it reaches them. So complete is the superiority of the Colorado peach in 
every regard that it has never failed to dominate every market it has reached. 
The Elberta is the queen of Colorado peaches. As it comes from the tree? 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



21 



rich in color, entirely free from any spots or discolorations, dripping with 
richly flavored juices, sweet as nectar, it makes a fruit which cannot be over- 
produced. Peach trees in Colorado come into profitable bearing in three years. 
No one knows how long they continue to bear, as the first trees planted are 
still prosperous after twenty crops. 

The canning of peaches has become a growing industry in the Colorado 
fruit sections. The high flavor and superior sweetness of the Colorado peach 
are as marked when canned as when sold fresh. The canneries pay $30 per 
ton for the fruit just as it comes from the tree. As yields of fifteen tons of 
peaches to the acre are not at all uncommon, the net returns to the owner of 
the orchard, after paying all expenses of picking and delivering, frequently 
run above $300 per acre. 

The contrast between the richness of the Colorado canned peaches with 
the tough and tasteless products of some other parts of the United States is 
so marked that the peach canners expect to build up the same quality repu- 




The Protecting Cliffs at Palisade are said to Prevent Early Krosts. The Peach Crop of 

Palisade Never Fails 

tation for their canned fruit already enjoyed by the fresh fruit, then to be 
able to get higher prices, and then in turn to be able to pay still higher prices 
to the growers. 

Pear Production 

In the lower altitudes, and in locations where the soil is not only deep 
but well drained to a considerable depth, pear growing is becoming the most 
profitable form of Colorado orcharding. The pear is a deep rooting tree, and 
it wants a heavy soil, but free from standing water. 

The pear blight, that mysterious disease which has swept the country 
from one end to the other, making the tenderer and therefore more valuable 
varieties of pears almost extinct in the East, is no stranger to Colorado. But 
the Colorado orchardists, with the dry climate and the sunshine to help them, 



22 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



have actually succeeded in overcoming the blight, keeping it from spreading 
in their orchards, if once introduced, and practically controlling it. The Colo- 
rado pear season begins just at the close of the Pacific Coast season, and gener- 
ally finds the market bare and demand brisk. Single acres of pears in the Grand 
Valley have returned more than $1,250 to the growers. In the season of 1911 
a single tree on First Fruit Ridge, near Grand Junction, netted the owner just 
a little more than $70. The favorite varieties in Colorado orchards are Bart- 
lett, Anjou and Kieffer. The Kieffer pear does not approach the others in 
quality, but is free from blight and a big yielder, while the quality is high 
enough to make it a ready seller. 

Prune Growing 

The growing of prunes for the market in Colorado is now carried on on a 
large scale at only two places — at Montrose and at Morrisania ranch, near 
Grand Valley. So profitable have these experiments been, however, that the 
owners of the plants have several hundred acres of young prune trees coming 
into bearing. The Colorado prune is of large size, exceedingly sugary and 
juicy, and commands fancy prices wherever marketed, easily surpassing the 
famous California product. Prunes can be grown successfully at altitudes 
where the seasons sometimes prove too short for other fruits. 

The American varieties of grapes — Concord, Catawba, Niagara, Delaware, 
Worden and the like — grow in all the fruit sections of Colorado and New 
Mexico, with a very large yield and high quality. No effort has been made to 
raise these in quantities beyond the demands of the local markets. 

In lower valleys, where the seasons are longer, great success has been 
attained with the European table and wine grapes — Tokay, Cornichon, Mus- 
catel, Emperor, Riesling, Hamburg and the like. It has been predicted even 
that some sections of Colorado would become, like the Rheingau of Germany, 
famous for the quality of wine produced. However, while every goal of 
quality and of large yield has been attained, the growing of these varieties, 




■■■■■■■iHHHIHMNi 
Irrigating a Prune Orchard, Uncompahgre Valley 




THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



23 




Picking Strawberries in the Delta District 



except for a limited local demand, has not proved commercially a success. 
The fortunate owners of fruit tracts, however, can enjoy for their own use 
at slight trouble and expense a large variety in splendid quality of this most 
delicious of fruits. 

Small Fruits — Cherries, Strawberries, Dewberries, Currants and Gooseberries 

The home markets of Colorado are not nearly supplied with the home 
product of small fruits. In the growing of strawberries of large size and 
perfect flavor and consistency the valleys of the Western Slope have no equal 
in the world, and the small fruit business is developing very rapidly. Denver, 
the tourist and health resorts and the mining camps take all of this fruit 
they can get hold of and still ask for more. A well cared for strawberry 
patch on good land and in the right location may be depended upon for a 
yield, above picking and selling expenses, of from $300 to $500 per acre per 
annum. In many Colorado locations the practice is followed of harvesting 
two crops of berries from the same patch in a year. This is accomplished by 
drying off the field after the first picking, thus making the plants think they 
have gone through a winter, then throwing in the water and renewing cultiva- 
tion to start a fresh growth, and thus starting new blossoms and new fruit 
for fall picking. This double crop is another illustration of the advantages 
of the exact control of the water supply under irrigation. 

Cherries are a safe and profitable crop in all parts of Colorado. Single 
acres at Palisade have paid as high as $1,200 above picking expenses. The 
development of the canning industry in Colorado has produced a new market 
for cherries. . The Colorado cherry is not the weak, flabby, tasteless fruit 
which often lies under a bright label, but is rich, flavorsome and acid. Either 
fresh or in cans, the demand is always beyond the supply, and the demand 
from the South grows every year. The picking for a cannery is very much 
less expensive than picking and packing for market shipments, and in the 
Canon City district some growers in the summer of 1911 realized more than 
$300 per acre from five-year-old cherry trees, sold to the canneries. 

Dewberry growing is another Colorado specialty. The Lucretia dewberry 
grows on a trailing, thorny vine. It has richer flavor than the blackberry, 
smaller seeds in proportion, and is much larger. It requires exact conditions 
as to moisture and ripening season, and so is not well known in the regions 
that depend on rainfall. Under irrigation the dewberries pay from $250 to 
$500 per acre above picking expenses. 

Currants and gooseberries are raised in limited amounts. The yield is 
large enough, but the expense of getting them picked and the difficulty of 
getting pickers tends to limit the production to those horticulturists blessed 
with large and diligent families. 



24 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Cantaloupes and Tomatoes 

Whether cantaloupes and tomatoes should be classed as fruit or vegeta- 
bles, they are proving valuable crops, especially for growing between young 
trees in new orchards. The fame of the Arkansas Valley cantaloupes once 
spread from ocean to ocean, and this region of Colorado still ships annually 
thousands of carloads every summer. The melon produced in the rich soils 
of the Western Slope has proved itself to be as far ahead of the "Rocky Ford" 
in quality, texture and delicious sweet flavor as the Rocky Ford is over the 
Eastern melon. Shipped in refrigerator carload lots as far East as New York 
and Philadelphia, the distinctive market for these melons is growing, and each 
year sees a larger acreage and larger returns to the growers. In 1911 the 
acreage in melons about Clifton, Grand Junction and Fruita aggregated sev- 
eral hundred, while returns netted as high as $150 per acre. 

The same conditions that make good apples and pears and good peaches 
and melons produce good tomatoes. Starting in a small way in the Grand 
Valley, the showing of possible profits in tomato raising for the canneries has 
been so good that the growth of a large industry in the course of the next 
few years may be taken as a certainty in those valleys which enjoy a long, 
warm growing season. The shipping of fresh tomatoes into the mining camps 
also returns good profits to the growers. 



Chapter VI. 



LIVE STOCK IN COLORADO 

THE farmer who wishes to raise cattle, sheep or hogs in Colorado and fat- 
ten them for market will find that in every regard he has advantages 
over any other section of the United States. The climate favors keeping 
stock out of doors, the sunshine and dry air prevent disease. Irrigation pro- 
duces very much more bountiful crops, while the marketing facilities are better 
than those enjoyed by most of the stock producing states of this country. 

In dairying, also, Colorado offers remarkable advantages in the way of 
abundant fodder cheaply produced, of a cool climate and of a steady market 
for the butter at higher prices than prevail in any other portion of the United 
States. 

Alfalfa and field peas have a double importance to the state, for they not 
only afford profitable crops, upon which are based immense and rapidly 
increasing live stock interests, but they afford a safe, sure and inexpensive 
method of renewing the soil's fertility. 

Nitrogen is an element which every plant has to have, to grow well. 
Nitrogen does not come from the grinding up of rocks, and it is therefore 
the only essential of fertility which is not to be found in Colorado soil in 
inexhaustible quantities. More than half of the air we breathe is nitrogen, 
but in this form it is not available for plant growth. But by a peculiar part- 
nership with certain bacteria, alfalfa and field peas possess the property of 
drawing nitrogen out of the air, not only enough for their own use but a 
surplus which is left in the ground for following crops. The eastern farmer, 
when his crops languish, buys nitrates at a cost of from $20 to $40 per ton, 
and spreads them on his fields, but the Colorado farmer has simply to put in 
a crop which is itself profitable and reap the same benefits. 

On next page is shown a photograph of the root system of a field pea. The 
mass of roots, it will be seen, is mingled with little lumps or "nodules." Each 
of these is a colony of bacteria, drawing nitrogen from the air. The alfalfa 
or pea roots run through the lumps and take out what nitrates are needed 
for the growing plant. When the crop is harvested and the ground plowed 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 25 



the nitrates are still there. Nitrogen in vegetables is what makes red blood 
in the men or the animals that eat them. The gluten of wheat, the protein 
of beans, the strength-giving qualities of cabbage and onions and all other 
vegetables, are all forms of nitrogen. 

The Alfalfa Bonanza 

Alfalfa, without any regard to what it does for the soil, is in itself a 
bonanza crop. It is a plant of the clover family, a perennial, which sends 
long, tapering roots ten to thirty feet into the ground. This immense root is 
supplemented by a mass of smaller rootlets, with attendant nitrogen nodules. 
With this great root system, the plant grows at the rate of more than an inch 
a day. Three and four crops of hay are harvested every season. 

Alfalfa while growing is the deepest living green that ever beautified a 
landscape. When ready to cut, an alfalfa field is a sea of fragrant purple 
blossoms, making the finest bee pasture and honey known. Alfalfa hay is 
rich green in color, sweet in taste. It is the staff of life in a Colorado barn- 
yard. Horses work on it without grain, dairy cows give their richest milk, 
cattle and sheep fatten with only a little corn, even pigs eat the dry hay 
readily and can be pastured all summer in a field. 

For chickens, finely ground alfalfa meal is sold at high prices in the East 
as an egg-compelling nostrum. Chemical analysis shows alfalfa to contain 
almost exactly twice the digestible elements that a ton of the best timothy 
hay contains. Alfalfa is so rich that it cannot be cured except in a dry 
climate. In the East the hay musts and spoils in the dampness. 




Roots of the Field Pea Plant 

The Field Pea 

Eight years ago the field pea was practically unknown as one of Colo- 
rado's agricultural assets. Today it is one of the state's greatest possibilities. 
In five years it has doubled the value of more than half a million acres of 
land, has increased the product of "finished" mutton and pork of the state 
three-fold, and is attracting the attention of stockmen from all over the 
country. 

Field pea growing is practically a Colorado monopoly, and its range is 
limited to a comparatively small section of the state. Its discovery ranks 
among the most important agricultural finds ever made in Colorado. About 
ten years ago a farmer in the San Luis Valley planted field peas in one of 
his fields to replenish the soil, which had been sapped by repeated crops of 
grain. The peas, which he intended to plow under while green, got away from 



26 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



him, grew to full size and were covered with ripe peas. In order to get rid of 
the peas, the farmer turned in a bunch of sheep, only to find that the sheep 
had fattened in prime shape for market in an incredibly short time. From 
this accidental discovery the field pea industry sprang, but it is still conceded 
to be only in its infancy. The basis of the field pea industry is two-fold, high 
altitude and a dry climate being the two requisites. The high altitude means 
a cool climate. Plant field peas in Iowa or Illinois, or even at Denver, and 
they will grow and flourish just so long in the spring as the weather is cool. 
The first hot days see the vines turn yellow and stop growing. But in the 
regions where the summer is both hot and damp, the crop is not safe even 
when grown. Peas are very rich in protein, and correspondingly inclined to 
spoil. 

On the high plateaus of Colorado, above 7,000 feet elevation, it is spring 
all summer, so far as temperatures go. Planted in the spring, the peas grow 
and blossom and set pods all through the summer and into the fall. The 
result is an amount of feed which is surprising to the man who has never 
seen the peas growing in Colorado. 

But the Colorado climate is not only cool; it is dry and sunny. The 
moulds and mildews which destroy the pea crop in the East are driven away 
by the constant sunshine. The few peas that fall to the ground remain there, 
dry and hard, while the rest of the crop ripens. The vines, instead of turning 
black, cure into a sweet hay. The result is that the farmer has on his field 
in the fall the equivalent, on each acre, of fifty or more bushels of corn, as 
well as the equivalent of two or three tons of hay. 

Here, again, the climate comes to the farmer's help. With an open, sunny, 
dry fall in prospect, it is not necessary to harvest the crop. Cattle, sheep and 
hogs, turned into the field, pick up the peas and crunch them down, eat the 
vines for hay, and turn into fat beef and pork and mutton faster than on any 
other feed known. 

Every year that a crop of peas is raised on a piece of land the land 
becomes richer and more fertile. This is because the pea is one of the plants 
which can draw nitrogen from the air and store it in its roots. Land which 
has been altogether depleted by grain growing has been restored to full fertil- 
ity by producing two crops of peas. 

But, to crown all the other advantages, when the farmer in the pea 
country has produced his beef or mutton or pork at one-half the cost of money 
or labor it would take in the corn belt, he has a fancy product. Pea-fed bacon 
ranks with the best English product, and the Denver packers have offered a 
premium of $1 per cwt. over the top of the market for corn- fed stuff for a 
uniform supply of pea-fed bacon hogs. Pea-fed lambs always top the market. 
Pea-fed beef is the delight of epicures. 

But, as though all this were not enough for the farmer, it has been dem- 
onstrated that the field pea as now grown is only a feeble imitation of the 
field pea that science can produce. Experiments in seed selection, carried 
through a single season, have shown conclusively that a field pea can be devel- 
oped that will yield 75 and even 100 bushels of shelled peas to the acre. 

The area of field pea land in Colorado is not unlimited. The field pea 
demands an altitude of 7,000 feet and upwards, a reliable water supply, a 
loose soil with good drainage, and a region of abundant sunshine. Practically 
all the good field pea land in Colorado — or in the world, for that matter — is in 
the valleys traversed by the lines of the Denver & Bio Grande system. 

The San Luis Valley has nearly half a million acres of land on which 
peas are the principal rotation crop. In the higher slopes and plateaus of the 
great San Juan Basin there is more than 100,000 acres of land on which field 
peas can be grown as well as alfalfa and grain crops. Other field pea areas 
are in the Wet Mountain Valley, the upper Arkansas Valley, the Eagle River 
Valley and the upper valleys of the Gunnison. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 27 

Good field pea land with dependable water rights is now obtainable at 
from $35 up to $100 an acre, but it is predicted by authorities on land values 
that inside of five years every acre of good field pea land will be held at $150 
or $200 an acre, and will be hard to get hold of at that price. 

Colorado Hog Growing 

The man who understands raising hogs has fortune at his command in 
Colorado. In all parts of the state and under all conditions it has been shown 
that pork can be produced more cheaply here than anywhere else in the world. 
Hog diseases, which are the destroyers of profits in the corn belt, cannot sur- 
vive the germ-destroying rays of the constant Colorado sun. Alfalfa, as a hog 
pasture, will support more hogs to the acre and maintain them in better shape 
through the summer than any other forage crop. Barley and other grains 
which grow in Colorado finish hogs as cheaply as corn, and the pork commands 
a better price. Actual experience has shown that the conditions which spe- 
cially favor the field pea also produce a phenomenal crop of any of the clovers. 
It is a fact that Colorado farmers can keep more than twice as many pigs on 
an acre of pasture than can be kept in Iowa or Illinois. 




Hogs Fattening on Field Peas in the San Luis Valley 

"The Hog Man's Klondike" is the name which has been applied recently 
to the field pea regions of Colorado. These regions are high and cool, and hog 
cholera is absolutely unknown there. Realizing the importance of immunity 
from this most dreaded of all stock diseases, the state authorities, by strin- 
gent quarantine regulations, are keeping out all hogs that might bring infection. 

A bushel of peas will put on as much pork as a bushel and a third of corn. 
It is easier to raise fifty bushels of peas on the right kind of soil and in the 
right climate than it is to raise forty bushels of corn in the average corn 
country. The Colorado Agricultural College puts the average cost of seeding 
and irrigating an acre of peas at $1.50 to $2.50. The harvesting is done by the 
hogs themselves. There is no cost of cultivation. Records of as high as 650 
pounds of pork per acre from hogs grazed on peas have been recorded. Pea- 
fed pork commands a premium at the packing houses. Pea-fed bacon is the 
finest pork product obtainable. 

The Public Range 

Of the total area of the state of Colorado, about one-fifth is capable of 
cultivation. The balance is destined to remain always a range for cattle, 
horses and sheep. A large part of this range area is included in the moun- 



28 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



tains. The steep slopes of the hills in summer time are carpeted with tender 
grass, often two feet high, and of the most nutritious quality. Great stretches 
of grassy meadows alternate with the forests of the plateau regions. The 
lower hills, where the grass starts sooner, but where there is not so much 
moisture as higher up, afford an abundant spring and fall pasture. Even in 
the valleys where the ground is not used for irrigation grass grows which, 
though very short and stiff, is so rich in nutritive qualities that cattle fatten 
where an Eastern man might think there was nothing for them to eat. 

This great grassed region of Colorado has remained the property of the 
general Government, for the most part, and in the mountains it has been 
largely gathered into forest reserves. There is hardly a high, mountainous 
region of the state which is not now marked on the Government maps with 
the green color which indicates the timber reserves. These areas are 'under 
the direct control of the Agricultural Department, which keeps forest wardens 
constantly patrolling them, to prevent fires, to stop the wanton waste of 
timber, to protect the fish and game, to guard the streams from pollution, and 
to regulate the pasturing of stock. 

The day of the range steer in Colorado is about past. While in the future 
the public ranges will be pastured fully as heavily as now, probably even 
more economically and carefully, they will be used not for the production of 
"feeders" to be sent to the feed lots of the corn belt to be finished off for 
market, but as nurseries for "baby beef" to be finished in the feed lots in the 
adjoining valleys. 

With alfalfa, most nutritious of all forage crops, and with field peas in 
the valleys too high for alfalfa, with barley and oats in place of corn, Colorado 
feeders are now turning off steers of the very highest quality, and at much 
less expense than in the corn country. Without expense for feed sheds or 
shelters for the stock, without having to devote any part of their tilled acres 




Grand Champion Feeders, International Live Stock Exposition, Chicago. 
Bred and Raised near Montrose, Colorado 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



29 



to summer pasture, without the diseases common in the damper climates, such 
as tuberculosis; with healthier, stronger cattle; without the pest of flies in 
the hot weather, the Colorado feeders can produce the very acme of quality. 
It is something new in Colorado — the painstaking finishing up of the young 
steer — and most of the men who are at it are men who came to Colorado from 
the corn belt. But they are making money — every year more money — and the 
word they send back to the Mississippi Valley is bringing out every year more 
of their neighbors, eager to take advantage of opportunities long neglected by 
Coloradoans, but which seem like so many gold mines to the Easterners. 







2 ■■■hi 



**£f*^5»»f* 



Mr- ;: * if^PM 









^""jp^^rtpfc-i 



*w^ , f^^ 



Flock of Sheep Grazing in the Durango National Forest 



Sheep Growing and Feeding 

Sheep growing is also of increasing importance in Colorado. Sheep will 
nourish on ranges which are worthless for cattle. Nimbler and lighter on 
their feet, they are ranged on the highest pastures, far above timber line, 
where the grass is tender and almost sugary sweet. The time was when there 
were bitter and bloody feuds between cattlemen and sheepmen, but it is now 
recognized that each animal has its place. Cattlemen and sheepmen now meet 
in amity, and in fact many of the cattlemen have also bands of sheep of their 
own. Colorado produced $7,440,000 worth of sheep and wool in 1911. 

The sheep feeding industry flourishes in Colorado wherever there is a 
beet factory, or where alfalfa is grown, and also in the field pea districts of 
the San Luis Valley, the Wet Mountain Valley and the upper Arkansas 
Valley. This business has many variations. 

The old ewes, whose teeth have been worn down to the gums by cropping 
the close grass on the flinty soil of the mountains, are put in pens and fed 
beet pulp. This pulp is what is left of the beet after the sugar has been 
washed out. It is very soft and watery, and though almost tasteless, contains 
a large percentage of nutritious qualities. With a little alfalfa and corn, the 
ewes fatten into very tender, juicy mutton. The pulp is sold by the sugar 
factory to the men who raise the beets, and costs them 25 to 35 cents a ton. 



30 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



By getting the pulp, feeding cattle, sheep or lambs and putting the manure 
back in the soil, the farmer can raise continuous crops of beets without taking 
any fertility from his farm. 

Alfalfa and corn fed lambs from Colorado are eagerly sought in the east- 
ern markets. Alfalfa makes almost a complete ration for feeding, so that the 
lambs need barely a few handfuls apiece of corn every day in order to fatten. 
The corn is brought in from the corn belt of Nebraska or Kansas, the railways 
making low rates. 

Field pea fed lambs are simply turned into the fields, after the peas have 
ripened. They eat the vines for roughage, and the peas for grain, and finish 
for the market sooner by a month than the lambs that are fed upon alfalfa, 
corn or pulp. 

The Growing Packing Interest 

The packing industry of Colorado, based upon the growth of the live stock 
interest, has increased a hundred-fold in the last few years. The great houses 
of Chicago have made Denver one of their leading outposts. More than a 
million dollars has been invested in packing houses in Denver, and it is 
announced that the size and capacity of the plants are to be doubled. The 
packing interest at Pueblo has also greatly increased. These Colorado mar- 
kets generally pay the local producer as much as he would get for his cattle, 
sheep or hogs if he took them to the Missouri River, and thus save him a 
considerable freight charge. 



Chapter VII. 



GENERAL FARMING IN COLORADO— DAIRYING, BEET RAISING, 
POTATOES, ALFALFA, BEES, CHICKENS 

DIVERSIFICATION in farming has been one of the great Colorado move- 
ments of the last five years. The time was when certain sections of 
Colorado took almost a pride in the narrowness of the range of crops 
raised. One valley would be all in fruit and fruit trees, another would special- 
ize in potatoes, and still another in alfalfa and sugar beets. The present day 




An Extensive Alfalfa Field in the Montezuma Valley 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



31 



tendency in all sections of the state is toward more and more diversified crops 
— what might be called general farming. 

The same fertility of the soil and the same favorable conditions due to 
the sunshine and the ability to irrigate make big crops of wheat, oats and 
barley, just as they make big crops of fruit or other products. The production 
of grain is increasing in Colorado every year. One of the peculiar things 
about the farming of the arid region is that the average annual crop of small 
grain has increased instead of diminished. In most grain countries, there is, 
after the first few years, a steady decrease in the yield of small grain. Indeed, 
there are immense areas in Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota, as well as in states 
further east, which used to be celebrated for their wheat and other grains, 
and which now either produce less grain or none at all. This is not so in 




A Field of Sugar Beets in the San Luis Valley 

Colorado, and in all parts of the state are elevators and flouring mills to take 
care of the crops. The oats are used in feeding the horses used in the cities 
and about the mining, lumber and coal camps. Colorado oats always bring a 
higher price than oats shipped in from the East, and weigh from eight to 
twelve pounds more per measured bushel. In most parts of the state spring 
wheats are planted, but of late years the acreage of winter wheat has 
increased. 

Alfalfa and Other Hays 
Alfalfa is the staple hay crop in all parts of Colorado, growing in locali- 
ties as high as 8,000 feet in altitude. To grow alfalfa under irrigation takes 
no such care and effort as in the East. Sown with small grain, it makes three 
full cuttings the year afterward, and then is there as long as the farmer wants 
it. Four to six tons to the acre is the average yield of alfalfa hay, and each 
ton of alfalfa is worth, by actual analysis, for feeding purposes, two tons of 
good timothy. 



32 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



In the higher valleys there are many thousands of acres of low land 
devoted to raising wild hay, wire grass and blue stem. The wire grass is not 
the tough and sharp grass which goes by this name in the East, but is tender, 
juicy and nutritious and cures up a bright green. Under irrigation, timothy, 
brome grass, red top and other favorite grass crops of the East can be grown 
of better quality and larger yield than under rainfall. It often puzzles men 
from the rainy country, in going through an irrigated region, to see so little 
"meadow" or "pasture." The reason is not that grasses will not grow in 
Colorado, but because the Colorado farmer has other crops that pay him much 
more per acre than grass, and so he does not give up any acreage to a less 
productive crop. 

Sugar Beets 

In nine years from the opening of the first sugar factory in Colorado, the 
state had become the greatest producer of sugar among the states of the 
Union. According to official figures of the Department of Agriculture, there 
is now no other state that produces one-half as much beet sugar annually as 
the state of Colorado. The total investment in sugar factories and machinery 
in Colorado, exclusive of real estate, is more than $18,000,000. Millions of 
dollars besides have been spent in building railway lines to bring the sugar 
beets in from the fields to the factories. There were in operation in the state 
in 1907 sixteen sugar factories, which produced refined sugar worth, at the 
lowest wholesale price, $12,412,680. To the farmers who produced the beets 
from which this sugar was made the factories paid $10,500,000. To employes 
the factories paid a total of $5,250,000. 

The total acreage planted to beets was 150,000. Dividing the amount paid 
farmers for beets — $10,500,000 — by this acreage, gives $70 as the average gross 
profit per acre on land planted to beets in Colorado, making a net profit of 
about $30. 

Poultry Raising 

Poultry raising as an industry in Colorado is increasing very rapidly. 
Every condition in the state but ONE seems to favor the production of 
chickens and eggs of the highest quality and at the lowest cost. That ONE 
condition is the dryness of the climate, which does affect the hatching 
of eggs and the activity and health of the young chickens. In the last few 
years experiments with moisture incubators seem to be removing this diffi- 
culty, and all over Colorado whole communities are going into chickens. The 
city of Denver alone imports annually more than $1,250,000 worth of eggs 
and poultry, and the total amount brought to Colorado and shipped through 
to points west from Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa aggregates more than 




A Profitable "Side Line" in the San Luis Valley 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



33 



$2,000,000 worth every year. Once successfully hatched, chickens do very well 
in Colorado. The dry climate is conducive to outdoor activity. Most of the 
familiar chicken diseases and pests of the East are missing. The open, dry, 
sunny winters are also conducive to winter laying. Experts with experience 
both in Colorado and in the humid sections, such as the shores of Lake Michi- 
gan, have figured out that an average hen will return in profits nearly sixty 
per cent, more in one of the Colorado valleys, with the same consumption of 
feed. 

The raising of turkeys is especially profitable in the farming districts of 
Colorado. The cold rains and damp mornings that work havoc among the 
chicks in the Eastern climates are wholly lacking in the dry air of the Colo- 
rado valleys. Alfalfa fields harbor a good many insects, and turkeys ranging 
in the fields need no feed from spring until fall. Turkeys are also a desirable 
thing in orchards, as they keep up the fight against moths, bugs and other 
insect pests. 




A Bee Farm — Colorado Honey has made Fortunes 



Bee Keeping in Colorado 

The late Isaac Watts versed a great truth about the honey gatherers 
when he wrote 

"How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each SHINING hour." 

Bees prefer to work when the sun shines bright. There are actually just 
about double as many working days for bees in the irrigated sections of 
Colorado as in the East, and so the actual honey production is nearly doubled. 
In addition, there is a much more constant supply of honey, because irrigation 
keeps things always green and growing. The irrigating ditches and canals 
are fringed with sweet clover, while the ever blooming alfalfa fields, the fruit 
blossoms and even the desert flowers furnish an almost unlimited constant 
supply of "bee pasture." 



34 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Many men have rolled up little fortunes in a few years with bees. One 
man came into the Grand Valley with very little money and absolutely no 
knowledge of bees except what he could pick up from books, started in a 
small way, established colonies in different parts of the valley, and inside of 
three years was riding about in his own automobile, visiting his colonies, and 
taking from them an income of more than $2,000 per year. 

Colorado honey has a good and growing reputation for uniform quality 
and the market has very few lapses from activity. 

Cabbage, Potatoes, Onions 

From being a specialty in a few localities, the growing of potatoes in car 
lots has spread to all parts of Colorado and the potato has become one of the 
staple crops. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad has established freight rates 
from the valleys of the Western Slope which enable them to reach the mar- 
kets of the East and Southeast on a parity with all other parts of the West. 
Being midway of the continent, Colorado is in position to ship potatoes in all 
directions. One man in the Uncompahgre Valley in 1911 counted in profits of 
more than $8,000 from one forty-acre field. Returns of more than $200 per 
acre from early potatoes in the Grand Valley are not unusual. 

For a few years the raising of onions in the Gulf Coast country cut into 
the Colorado markets and checked the onion-growing industry. The dry cli- 
mate, however, gives conditions for ripening and curing onions not shared by 
the coast regions, and the markets are again discovering that Colorado onions 
are best. The area is therefore steadily increasing. Profits of $400 per acre 
from onions are not considered in the least remarkable or unusual. 

Fortunes for Dairymen in Colorado 

The dairy interest in Colorado is another money-maker, long neglected, 
that has recently begun to grow. The Eastern farmer has been so long 
wedded to his "parster" that when he removes to Colorado it is hard for him 




Dairy Cattle in the Ridgway-Ouray District 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 35 



to realize that, with alfalfa hay as easily and cheaply produced as it is, he 
can feed his cows from the haystacks almost every day in the year, and still 
make good money producing butterfat and milk. In many of the higher 
valleys there are large areas of good pasture land that can be bought at a 
low figure, with cheap hay close at hand. The state of Colorado does not 
produce one-fourth of the butter used at home, and every good dairyman will 
find at his nearest town a market at high prices for all his butter the year 
around. 

In connection with dairying, special attention is called to the region 
known as the San Juan Basin. Here there is a combination of a good alfalfa 
country, a good blue grass country, an abundance of free range and close 
markets which is going to make a good deal of money for those who take 
advantage of it. 

A Little of Everything 

The ideal farm is one which has not one industry, but many, to depend 
upon. In most of Colorado's valleys the farmer can produce profitably cab- 
bages, onions, potatoes, small fruits, tree fruits, alfalfa for dairying, a few 
hogs, eggs, chickens, turkeys and honey. There is no other place in the world 
where an all-around farm such as this will pay as well and as surely as in 
Colorado. 



Chapter VIII 



THE EASTERN SLOPE— DENVER TO PUEBLO— CANON CITY— THE 
HUERFANO VALLEY, TRINIDAD AND VICINITY 

COLORADO has practically three great slopes — East in the valleys of the 
Platte and Arkansas rivers and their tributaries; South in the Rio 
Grande del Norte ; West in the San Juan Basin and in the great valleys 
of the Gunnison and the Grand rivers. 

The Eastern Slope being the most accessible in the development of Colo- 
rado, contains the larger centers of population. Besides the opportunities for 
new settlers afforded by the cutting up of larger farms, there have been a 
number of recent irrigation developments in this part of Colorado. The val- 
leys of the Western Slope generally have richer soil than those of the eastern 
side, and the supply of water on the Pacific Slope is much greater in propor- 
tion to the area irrigated. On the other hand, the settler on the Eastern 
Slope is certain to be within a few miles only of large towns or cities, with 
the resultant good markets for his products. 

From Denver southward, the line of the Denver & Rio Grande traverses 
the valley of the Platte River and of Plum Creek, climbing toward the top of 
the Arkansas-Platte divide. In this section there is a slowly growing area of 
dry- farmed land. Toward the summit of the divide the average annual rain- 
fall increases, and considerable is done in the way of dairying, potato raising 
and other lines of farming. 

Between Colorado Springs, which is the great resort city of Colorado, and 
Pueblo, which is the great steel manufacturing point, the valley of Fountain 
Creek widens into a vast expanse of fertile farms, orchards and hay fields, 
dotted with buildings and lofty stacks of alfalfa. The favorable climate, the 
nearness to the home markets afforded by Colorado Springs, Pueblo and 
Cripple Creek, and the richness of the soil are leading to the elaborate develop- 
ment of this section. 

FOUNTAIN VALLEY DEVELOPMENT 

By the construction of a series of reservoirs, filled by ditches drawing 
their supply for the most part from Fountain Creek, a company of Colorado 
capitalists has watered about 20,000 acres of fine fertile land, lying three to 



36 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



fifteen miles south and east of Colorado Springs, near the Rio Grande station 
of Widefield. The climate is favorable for the growing of most kinds of vege- 
tables, alfalfa, small fruits, cherries, plums and apples. The city of Colorado 
Springs is a constant and high priced market. Being all close to the railway, 
the settlers on these lands can raise beets to be shipped to the sugar factories 
down the Arkansas Valley, thus opening another source of farm profit in 
addition to suburban farming. 

Upon these lands a settlement of farms varying in size from five to forty 
acres is rapidly springing up. The land is sold to settlers upon very easy 
terms, and the variety of crops that can be produced and the nearness to the 
markets are attracting settlers from all parts of the United States. 

Besides their productive value, these lands have a splendid scenic setting, 
upon a plateau or bench above the valley of Fountain Creek and commanding 
a view of the Pikes Peak, Rampart, Cheyenne and Greenhorn ranges extending 
for nearly 150 miles. 

The town of Fountain, fourteen miles below Colorado Springs, is now the 
agricultural center of the Fountain Valley. The valley is one sweep of the 
vivid green of alfalfa in the summer time. Enormous stacks of hay dot the 
landscape. In other meadows blue stem or wild hay is grown by irrigation. 
All around Fountain are farms and orchards, producing tree and small fruits, 
vegetables, eggs and poultry to supply the always eager markets north and south. 

PUEBLO AND VICINITY 

The agricultural district surrounding Pueblo is one of the most important 
in the state. Pueblo is a great manufacturing, smelting and railroad center 
and therefore is a great market for all kinds of farm products. The city has 
approximately 60,000 population and is growing rapidly, so that farming in 
its tributary territory will inevitably increase in profitableness. 

The most important agricultural district close to Pueblo lies on the south 
side of the river for about twenty miles, and extends from the city limits 
down the river to Boone. This district is watered by the Bessemer ditch and 
still has about 15,000 acres of land available for settlement, with good water 
rights included, from $50 to $150 per acre. A large portion of this tract is in 
truck gardens, supplying the city with fresh vegetables. On the north side 
of the river, parallel, is an equally rich belt, watered by the Orchard Grove, 
the Booth and Excelsior ditches. Back from the farming lands on both sides 
of the river is a great cattle range, which supplements in a large degree the 
products of the farmers of the valley. 

On both sides of the river — in fact, all the way to the Kansas line — the 
land is of exceptional fertility, the climate mild and equable, with over 300 
days of sunshine a year. Truck gardening, poultry, honey, sugar beets, apples, 
peaches, pears, prunes, plums, potatoes, cantaloupes, Mexican beans, oats, 
wheat, corn, rye, barley and dairy farming represent the many occupations of 
this valley. 

THE TELLER RANCH— APPLE ORCHARDS 

Five miles west of Pueblo commence the lands of what has been known 
as the Teller Ranch. This comprises an area of several thousand acres, for 
which a water supply has been secured by building a large reservoir. Here 
hundreds of orchard tracts are being bought by investors and settlers from 
all parts of the United States. Apples and cherries are being extensively 
planted under the direction of a colonization company which has had wide 
success in other parts of the United States. 

It is intended to make every orchard on the Teller Ranch as perfect as 
assiduous care and attention can make it, so that when all this big area comes 
into bearing the production of fruit, in both quality and quantity, may equal 
that of the most favored fruit valleys of the state. 

West of Pueblo lies the beautiful valley of Beulah, watered by the St. 
Charles River, with its fine farms and ranches, its cafions and magnificent 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



37 





Harvest Scene in the Arkansas Valley, near Pueblo 

scenery. In this valley are excellent opportunities in farming, dairying, 
orchards and truck gardening. When the town of Beulah is connected with 
Pueblo by rail the price of lands in the valley will greatly increase. The 
fertility of the soil of this valley is attested by the fact that the first prize 
on wheat at the World's Fair in St. Louis was given to wheat raised in this 
valley. 

South of the Beulah district lies the town of Rye, a prosperous farming 
community some fifteen miles west of the Trinidad branch of the Denver & 
Rio Grande Railroad. Situated at the base of the southern spur of the Green- 
horn Range, with good irrigation facilities, this district is particularly attrac- 
tive both as a health resort and as a farming community. A sanitarium for 
invalids requiring a Avarm, equable, invigorating climate is maintained here. 

ON THE HUERFANO RIVER 

The Huerfano River is one of the larger streams of southern Colorado, 
draining a considerable area running north from Sierra Blanca along the 
Greenhorn and Sangre de Cristo ranges. While the stream has a large flow; 
it is somewhat intermittent. Of recent years several reservoir projects have 
been completed, and more are under way. At Larimer and at Orlando, sta- 
tions of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad south of Pueblo, large areas of 
land have been brought under water, and this land is being rapidly settled. 
At Badito, on the Huerfano River west of Orlando, a company has under way 
plans for an immense reservoir which will add nearly 100,000 acres of land to 
that irrigated and cultivated from the Huerfano River. 

One great advantage of this section is that it lies almost within the 
boundaries of -the great southern Colorado coal fields, in which tens of thou- 
sands of men, horses and mules are employed, thus providing an immense 
home market for all the fruits and vegetables, the hay, oats and grain that 
can be produced by the farms close at hand. 

TRINIDAD AND VICINITY 

Trinidad, almost at the southern end of the state, is in the center of the 
great coal and coke district. Recently the attention of local capitalists has 
been turned to the development of the agricultural resources. Several projects 



38 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



are in hand to water land by the construction of reservoirs on the headwaters 
of the Purgatoire River and its tributaries, and it is expected that many 
thousands of acres of land will come under cultivation. This land will be 
general farming land, suitable for sugar beets, alfalfa and grains of all kinds. 
The Cucharas Valley, starting at La Veta, a division point on the Denver 
& Rio Grande line to the San Luis Valley, is another section which has 
recently begun to feel the march of development. Quite a number of streams 
flowing from the Culebra Range join to form the Cucharas. On several of 
these valleys, and on the main stream itself, reservoir sites have been located, 
and the completion of some of these projects is promised for the near future. 
There are also a number of old cattle ranches, where several hundred acres of 
alfalfa lands are being subdivided into smaller holdings and sold to settlers. 
This section is described as affording as attractive opportunities to a man of 
moderate means as any other section of Colorado, although but little adver- 
tised. 

BEAVER PARK 

Beaver Park, located in a valley north of the Arkansas River about 
twenty-five miles west of Pueblo, is a locality worthy the attention of a man 
seeking a Colorado location. In this valley a group of Colorado capitalists 
has undertaken the building of a model irrigated community. The source 
of the irrigating water is Beaver Creek, a dependable stream which drains 
the south slopes of the Pikes Peak Range. The water is brought from the 
creek to the land by the most costly system yet installed in Colorado. The 
first three miles of the main canal is a pipe line of Oregon fir lumber, three 
and one-half feet in diameter. The water then passes through a cement lined 
tunnel 1,000 feet long, and then reaches the land through a cemented ditch. 
The branch lateral system, of which there will be more than 100,000 feet, has 
been made entirely of cement piping. The company built its own cement 
mill and pipe factory. Mile after mile of the cement pipe has been laid, so 
that the water, flowing under ground, is delivered to each user without any loss 
from seepage or evaporation. A railroad fifteen miles long, connecting with 
the Denver & Rio Grande main line at Beaver, has been built and gives the 
whole tract quick connection with the markets. 

Thousands of acres at Beaver Park have been planted in orchards. To 
insure the proper care of these orchards, both where the owners live on them 




Young Orchards in the Beaver Park Section 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



39 



and for those who live elsewhere, an elaborate Improvement Department has 
been established to see to it that each settler reaches the best result and that 
each tract is properly cared for. 

Under this guidance the whole Beaver Park region is rapidly growing 
into a compactly settled and prosperous community. The main line of the 
ditch was completed and the water brought to the land early in 1907, and a 
cement pipe plant is making the piping for the laterals at the rate of 1,000 
feet per day. 

Four thousand acres of land is now on the market. By the construction 
of reservoirs, water will be provided for 12,000 additional acres. The price 
of land in Beaver Park, with perpetual water rights, ranges from about $250 
an acre upwards. 




A Prosperous Orchard in the Canon City District 



CANON CITY 

Canon City, located at the mouth of the Royal Gorge, forty miles up the 
Arkansas River from Pueblo, has for twenty-five years led the Eastern Slope 
of Colorado in fruit growing and gardening. 

This valley enjoys a peculiarly favorable climate, even for Colorado. 
Walled in to the north, west and south by solid ranges of granite, through 
which the Arkansas River penetrates only by a mere knife-cut of a gorge, it 
is sheltered from all severe weather. Close to the mountains, it enjoys cool 
summers. 

Besides its agricultural prosperity, Canon City has been a health and 
pleasure resort since the first settlement of Colorado. It has a remarkably 
favorable climate for those invalids who need to spend much of their time 
out of doors. The scenery presents many points that are world-famous, 
including the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River, just above the town. There 



40 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



are also mineral springs, warm and cold, of proved medicinal virtue. Canon 
City is also a commercial and manufacturing point of increasing importance. 
It has lime quarries, coal mines, cement works, flouring mills, brick works, 
and several mills and smelters for the reduction of ore. 

One of the fine features of Canon City and vicinity are the remarkable 
roads and driveways. The Colorado State Penitentiary is located at Canon 
City, and a policy has been adopted of keeping the convicts at work on the 
roads and in the open air, on an honor system. While this plan was being 
tried out, roads were built over and through the mountains in all directions 
from Canon City. Among the more notable of these is the roadway to the 
very top of the Royal Gorge, where a stone may be dropped almost sheer 2,700 
feet to the tracks of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in the narrow defile far 
below. Another, known as the "Sky Line Drive," follows along the very top of 
a long, high ridge, giving a series of unequaled views of the mountains on one 
side and the closely farmed valley on the other. Another scenic highway leads 
across the mountains to Colorado Springs. 

The first apple orchard in the state was planted here, and from the time 
these first trees came into bearing the area of orchards has steadily increased, 
until Canon City has become one of the great apple markets of the state. 
There is a large production also of grapes, cherries and small fruits. 

About Canon City the small farms predominate. Here one may find 
families living not only in comfort, but in positive luxury, upon the returns 
from five to ten acre farms. The great mining camps of Leadville, Cripple 
Creek and Victor are never failing markets for the strawberries and rasp- 
berries, the currants and tomatoes, the sweet corn and other vegetables from 
these gardens. 

!■ Canon City has very mild winters, lawns frequently keeping bright green 
the year around. This feature of the climate has led to the extensive growing 
of early spring vegetables. Lettuce, onions, spinach and other hardy vege- 
tables are put in the open ground in August and September. They grow up 
before cold weather and in December are frozen down to the ground, but in 
February and March they are again growing, and in April are ready for the 
mountain markets — where anything green is a luxury. Another unusual crop 
is autumn strawberries. By the proper manipulation of irrigation, strawberry 
beds are made to blossom and fruit a second time, producing about Septem- 
ber 20. One gardener in a single year sold $142 worth of berries from a patch 
which had already given a large spring yield. 

In the last few years many cherry orchards, planted to provide material 
for the cannery, have been coming into bearing. These cherries are the sour 
variety and when canned make the finest material for cherry pies. The 
demand for the canned goods is far ahead of the supply. Single acres of 
Montmorency cherries five years old in Canon City in the spring of 1911 paid 
as high as $300 per acre over the cost of picking and delivery, and it is esti- 
mated that these same orchards at ten years old will be netting their owners 
above $1,000 per acre. 

Taking the whole Canon City district through — orchards, farms, vegetable 
patches and small fruits — the annual production has been shown to average 
above $75 per acre, which is hardly to be equaled in any similar area in the 
United States. Lands with water rights in the neighborhood of Canon City 
are selling at from $250 to $600 for land alone, and up to $1,500 for land with 
trees on it. 

FLORENCE AND VICINITY 

Equal to Canon City in commercial importance is the thriving city of 
Florence, situated eight miles east. Between the two cities the country is 
practically one continuous garden and orchard. Florence, besides being sur- 
rounded by trees and gardens, shows a landscape dotted with towering der- 
ricks, for it is the center of the oil industry in the West. Acres which on 
the surface produce abundantly of every good thing yield a second crop of 
petroleum from far beneath the surface. There are oil refineries at Florence 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



41 



which handle not only the petroleum produced from the local wells, but oil 
brought in tank cars from all the other districts of Colorado. Florence, besides 
the kerosene business, has also a large smelting and ore milling industry. It 
has direct rail connection to the great gold camp of Cripple Creek, and its 
cyanide and chlorination mills send to the mints every year millions of dol- 
lars' worth of gold ingots. The town is well built and prosperous, and its 
varied industries afford a good home market for the adjoining farms. Flor- 
ence has good schools, churches, large commercial houses and practically all 
the advantages of a city, besides being rated one of the most progressive and 
enterprising communities in the West. 




An Orchard near Florence 



WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY 

The Wet Mountain Valley, situated in Custer and Fremont counties, 
Colorado, almost directly south of Canon City, ranks foremost among the 
many fertile mountain valleys of the state. Extending for thirty miles in a 
nearly north and south direction between the Sangre de Cristo Range on the 
west and the Wet Mountain Range on the east, with an average width of 
seven miles of arable land, it combines all the advantages of climate, soil, etc., 
and is the home of a populous and prosperous agricultural community. The 
mean altitude of the valley proper is about 7,500 feet. It is drained by Grape 
and Texas creeks, both of which streams flow toward the northeast into the 
Arkansas River, and is abundantly watered by numerous tributaries, which 
come down from natural lakes high up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. 
For miles the valley presents an almost level appearance, with just sufficient 
slope toward the north and east to facilitate irrigation. 



42 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Chapter IX 



THE SAN LUIS VALLEY— COSTILLA ESTATE— VALLEY OF THE RIO 

GRANDE DEL NORTE 

THE earliest American explorers of Colorado termed the San Luis Valley 
"an earthly paradise." The first civilized agricultural settlements of the 
state were in the San Luis Valley, and for forty years its progress has 
been steadily onward. Ten years ago most residents of the valley believed 
that its development had been just about completed. Today the San Luis 
Valley seems to have just started, both in the area of irrigated land to be 
developed and in the uses to which that irrigated land may be put. 

The San Luis Valley was in recent geological times a great fresh water 
lake near the headwaters of the Rio Grande del Norte. Nearly fifty miles 
east and west and a hundred and twenty-five miles north and south the turbid 
waters of this lake extended. The lake was dammed back across various 
smaller valleys by a great flow of lava, which rolled down from Mt. San 
Antone, which still stands sentinel above the valley and created a barrier 
more than a thousand feet high. Originally the lake must have been a thou- 
sand feet deep, but the many torrents which poured into it from the volcano- 
studded ranges on every side brought down immense volumes of volcanic 
ashes, fine soil and pebbles from the mountain sides, and finally filled the 
basin full. The river, in the meantime, had been flowing across the barrier, 
and little by little carved out a canon, through which the waters slowly sub- 
sided. The San Luis Valley of today is this great lake bed, lying in steady, 
even slopes, with hardly a hill or a dune or a ripple in the general surface of 
the ground from mountain side to mountain side. 

The Rio Grande now flows peacefully across the valley from northwest to 
southeast. Toward it from the mountains on every side flow a number of 
creeks and rivers, each drawing a supply from mountain snows and summer 
rains which makes it a reliable source for irrigation. 

Surrounded by Mountains 

This great plateau, lying at from 7,500 to 8,000 feet above the sea, is 
surrounded on every side by high mountains. To the north and northeast is 
the solid granite barrier of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Range, 
culminating in Sierra Blanca, the third highest mountain in Colorado. To 
the east is the Culebra Range; to the south, the great rounded mass of San 
Antone; to the west, the Continental Divide and the Cochetopa Hills. 

The San Luis Valley might be described as a projection of New Mexico 
into Colorado. Being high, the burning heat of the deserts is tempered by 
the altitude. The mountains are frequently clothed in clouds — rain in sum- 
mer, snow in winter — while in the valley the sun shines undisturbed. The 
blizzards that sweep down from the north upon the plains portion of Colorado 
are baffled by the Sangre de Cristo Range and never reach the valley. The wet 
storms that sweep north and west from the Gulf of California pile their burdens 
of snow high on the mountains to the west of the valley, but do not get across. 

The result of all these conditions is a climate hardly equalled anywhere 
else. The summers are bright, but cool; the falls and winters are crisp, but 
sunny, open and dry. There is almost never any snow lying on the ground 
for more than a few days at a time. There are never any destructive wind 
storms, though the spring season is a breezy one. The mountain streams 
that flow into the valley are all crystal clear and all teem with trout. The 
mountains on all sides are full of game. With a perfect out-of-doors climate, 
camping and fishing are favorite amusements of the San Luis Valley farmers. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



43 



Soils of the San Luis Valley 

The soil of the San Luis Valley consists of a series of deposits brought 
down by rivers and deposited in the old lake bottom. The soils that are 
considered the best would look strange to an Eastern farmer, as all through 
the fine loam and volcanic materials are mingled pebbles great and small, from 
as large as the end of a finger up to as big as a man's head. Toward the 
center of the old lake finer materials were deposited by the waters. On the 
outer edges the slope of the valley is from thirty to forty-five feet to the 
mile, and this, with the very loose, coarse subsoil, gives almost perfect drain- 
age. Toward the center of the valley the soil is denser and the slope much 
less, ranging from nothing up to four feet to the mile. People from those 
parts of the United States where the finer and darker the soil is, the richer 
and more valuable it is, are often surprised to find that in the San Luis Valley 
the coarser ground is the higher priced, while the fine soil is the cheaper. 

The peculiar nature of the San Luis Valley gives much of the land another 
great advantage — it sub-irrigates. By sub-irrigation — or "subbing," as it is 
generally called in the San Luis Valley — is meant that by surface irrigation 
the land gradually fills with water, so it is moist to the surface. When this 
condition is reached, all that is necessary is to keep a very small amount of 
water in the ditches, running through the fields about 150 feet apart. This 
water sinks into the soil and the whole level rises, so that the surface is kept 
evenly moist and in the very best condition for growing crops. 

The Artesian Wells 

The San Luis Valley enjoys another wonderful advantage from its lake 
bed formation. As the lake was filled, its material was deposited in varying 
layers, first coarser materials, then a layer of fine, closer silt which through 
the ages has turned to stone, then another layer of gravel, and so on up to 
the surface. Nowadays, all the farmer has to do is to drive through the 
layers of fine material into one of the deposits of coarser stuff, and he has a 
flowing well, spouting a full stream of the purest, soft, clear water, often 
with force enough to carry it to the second story of his house. 

These wells take very little casing, and the cost of sinking them is so 
slight that farmers will often go out and drive a temporary well in a field 
where they are feeding, rather than go to the trouble of driving their stock 
to a well already driven. 

In the higher levels of the valley, where artesian wells will not run to 
the surface, there is sheet water, free from alkali and at a slight depth. 




San Luis Valley Pork 



44 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Irrigation on a considerable scale from artesian wells has been favorably 
discussed in the San Luis Valley. Garden patches of considerable size have 
been maintained by artesian flow and it has been made an important aid to 
water rights from river ditches. Some successful experiments have been car- 
ried out also in pumping the sheet waters to supplement the artesian flow 
and irrigate larger areas of land where the river waters cannot conveniently 
be carried in ditches. 

San Luis Valley Crops— The Field Pea 

The crops raised in the San Luis Valley, in the order of commercial impor- 
tance, are field peas, wheat, oats, potatoes, sugar beets and hay. The field pea 
may be said to be the foundation of agriculture in the San Luis Valley. It 
provides at the lowest cost a rich food for sheep, cattle and hogs. It enriches 




, Field Peas — Superior to Corn as a Fattening Food for Hogs 

the soil it grows in, as well as the farmer who plants it, requires a minimum 
of labor and has a multitude of uses. 

The field pea is not the "cow pea" raised in warmer climates. It is a true 
pea, similar to the garden peas. It is planted by broadcasting and plowing 
under, or by drilling into stubble fields, without plowing, in the spring. It is 
given no cultivation, but is irrigated until the vines cover the ground. In a 
moist, warm, cloudy climate, the vines would simply rot on the ground. In 
the San Luis Valley the sun shines always, the air is always dry and cool. 
The pea vines grow and set on blossoms and the blossoms make pods and the 
pods fill with peas; and the vines grow and set on more blossoms and more 
pods and more peas, until frost comes in the fall. Crops of fifty bushels of 
peas to the acre have been threshed in the San Luis Valley, and after this 
.crop had been gathered the ground was almost covered with peas that had 
shelled out and fallen off. But the San Luis Valley farmer does not gather in 
his crop, as a general thing. The same dry weather that prevails in summer 
continues into the fall and winter. The ripened crop of peas is left on the 
vines. The vines themselves cure into a superior hay. Sheep and cattle are 
turned into the fields and fatten on the crop more rapidly than if it were 
gathered in racks. Hogs are turned in with them or after them to pick up 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



45 



the peas that scatter out on the ground. The result is the production of many- 
more pounds of beef or mutton or pork to the acre than would be produced 
on an acre of corn, and with not one-fifth the labor. 

Discovered almost by accident about ten years ago, the value of the field 
pea to the San Luis Valley is just beginning to be appreciated. Seed selection 
is producing superior strains of peas. Cut green, the vines and pods make a 
wonderful hay for dairying. Ground and mixed with oats, they make good 
horse feed. The roots gather in nitrogen from the air and leave it for other 
crops, besides penetrating and opening the soil. 

Meats of all kinds produced on field peas have a remarkable quality, far 
ahead of that of corn- fed meat. Actual experiments have shown that a hog 
fattened on peas has nearly fifty per cent, more rich, red blood in his veins 
than one fattened on corn. The bacon of pea-fed hogs is full of red meat. 
Pea-fed mutton and beef is of equal superiority. Already the packing business 
is becoming an important industry in the San Luis Valley, and the time is not 
far distant when the hams and bacon from these pea- fed hogs will be sought 
by epicures from one end of the country to the other. 

Small Grains in the San Luis Valley 

Wheat, oats, barley, rye — the bread-making and stock- feeding small 
grains — grow in the San Luis Valley in crops which, instead of diminishing 
with years of crop rotation, continually increase. The soil, being new and 
rich and volcanic, is full of the mineral salts — potash, phosphorus, silica and 
lime — which the small grains demand. The rotation with peas and the feeding 
of stock on the fields keep up all this fertility. Fields of wheat in the San 
Luis Valley produced forty bushels to the acre in 1911 for the third successive 
time, following two years in peas. Oats have gone as high as 110 bushels to 
the acre, and crops of eighty or ninety bushels are not even unusual. 

Small grain growing in the San Luis Valley is a remarkably easy process. 
Generally, the grain is drilled after the plow, the same tractor hauling the 
plows, harrows and drills. Sub-irrigation is so simple that one man often 
tends an entire section through the whole irrigation season. In late August 




A Great Field of Wheat in the San Luis Valley 



4 6 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



or September the grain is ready to cut — and then it can stand in the shock 
all winter without injury. The threshing season in the San Luis Valley is 
not completed until just before it is time to begin to plow again. 

In the open, dry winters grain stands in the shock without injury, and 
threshed grain is left in great piles of sacks weeks and even months while 
the owner leisurely hauls it to the mill and elevator. The wheat and oats 
raised in the valley are very heavy. Sixty-four pound wheat and forty-four 
pound oats are not at all unusual. 

In most seasons the straw in the San Luis Valley is entirely free from 
rust, and makes a very valuable feed after the grain has been threshed. This 
is especially true of oats, which ripen from the tops down, so that they can 
be cut, well ripened and filled while the straw is still green. 

Barley, both the bearded and the beardless, hull-less varieties, is raised 
in large quantities in the San Luis Valley and used as stock feed in connection 
with peas, furnishing the starch to complete the fattening ration. 

Sugar Beets in the San Luis Valley 

Extensive experiments carried on ten years ago proved that the soils and 
climate of the San Luis Valley produced sugar beets of more than usual rich- 
ness in sugar, with a large tonnage to the acre. The building of a sugar 
factory became, therefore, only the matter of the further development of the 
valley by the coming in of more farmers of the class necessary to produce 
beets. The first sugar factory in the valley was opened for work November 1, 
1911. This factory is located at Monte Vista. It was largely promoted by 
local capital, and is of 600 tons' daily capacity. Beets for this factory were 
grown not only in the immediate vicinity, but all along the lines of the Denver 
& Rio Grande Railroad, at Del Norte, Alamosa, in the Costilla Estate, and at 
Romeo and La Jara. Although 1911 was the first year that the farmers had 
essayed the growing of beets, in most cases the beet acreage has proved the 
most profitable on the farm, and the experience of all the growers has demon- 





The New Beet Sugar Factory at Monte Vista 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



47 



Crated that beets will do extraordinarily well in all parts of the San Luis 
Valley There is now available of well irrigated land an acreage sufficient to 
run five factories such as the one at Monte Vista, and the extension of the 
oeet industry to all sections of the valley is one of the certain developments 
of the near future. 

Potatoes in the San Luis Valley 
The nitrogen that the field pea crop puts into the soil is especially favor- 
able to potatoes and the acreage of tubers in the valley is always large. The 
r^atoes P raised ir this soil and climate have secured a reputation for quality 
aU over the WeS, being extraordinarily mealy and well flavored. While the 
uotato industry in the valley has not always been entirely successful, owing 
Lthe%m d portaIion of seed fJom regions that --^ b^dly mfested -tji Pota to 
blight, the farmers have learned the lesson, and, with the aid ot tiie experts 





A San Luis Valley Potato Harvest 



from the Agricultural College, the old figures of yield will «™ * ™^ 
Whole field? of eighty acres have averaged a crop of more than 300 busnels 
Jo the acre in the San Luis Valley. One field of 120 acres three years ago 
Lrded aC aVe n t return of more th J $100 per acre f%^^^ ^ 
cultivation digging and selling had been taken off. The largest yield. e\er 
horded Som one acre of ground was made by the San Luis Valley in the 
American ^cultural Contest, when Mr. R. A. Chisholm of Del Norte showed 
a production of 846 bushels on one acre of ground. 

Getting Land in the San Luis Valley— Why Land Is So Cheap 
In suite of the wonderful records of production made in the San Luis 
Valley; ?n spi?e of the delightful climate, the good water and the many advan- 
ces land in the San Luis Valley can be obtained at prices so low and on 
terms ,o reasonable that it is within the reach of men whose means would 
n^llowTem a foothold anywhere else. Every year hundred^ renters 
from the farms of the Middle West have flocked into the San Luis VaUey 
bought land and have started on the road to prosperity, and there is still 
™n™ for thousands more and on the same easy terms. 

The reason for this condition lies in the enormous recent development of 
new lands and the redevelopment of older lands. New sources of water for 
rrXatTon are befng developed, by reservoirs, by drainage and by pump- 
S g Lands^nce thfught to be hopeless swamps are being drained Immense 
hofdings of old companies and "grafts" are being developed and subdivided. 



4 8 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



ALAMOSA 

The census returns of 1910 showed Alamosa to be the largest town in the 
San Luis Valley, having nearly 3,500 people. It stands almost in the center 
of the valley. Four lines of the Denver & Rio Grande system radiate 
from this center. The main broad gauge line to Denver runs east to the foot 
of La Veta Pass at Fort Garland. The main lines to Santa Fe, New Mexico, 
and Durango and Silverton, Colorado, extend south. To the west runs a line 
to Monte Vista, Del Norte and the mining camp of Creede, while on the north 
is a branch which joins the transcontinental route of the Denver & Rio Grande 
road at Salida. Alamosa is the division headquarters for the Fourth Division 
and has large locomotive and car shops. Hundreds of railroad men make 
their homes here. There are also several wholesale houses, a pork packing 
plant, a creamery, two banks and a large number of mercantile establishments. 

Directly around Alamosa a big area of land is being subdued to regular 
and profitable production. Extending down the bottoms of the Rio Grande 
del Norte for several miles are thousands upon thousands of acres of fertile 
lands, long used as pastures and hay meadows by big cattle companies, but 
which are now being subdivided and sold as farms. Just southwest of Ala- 
mosa is an area of about 100,000 acres of fine, fertile land, which in part 
suffers from too much water, and at some seasons of the summer has not 
water enough. A plan is now under way to create a municipal district of this 
whole tract, bond the land, build an immense reservoir on a favorable site in 
the mountains, dig drainage ditches all through the tract, and, by taking out 
the surplus water and having storage for irrigation, to make it equal in pro- 
ductiveness with the best in the San Luis Valley. 

North of Alamosa extensive drainage operations are being carried on with 
entire success, more than 30,000 acres once thought worthless having been 
restored to the plow. Just east of town is another area of nearly 100,000 
acres, for which it was once thought there was no water, but which, it is now 
believed, can be irrigated by pumping from shallow wells. 




A Kitchen Garden, Alamosa 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



49 




A Fine Stand of Oats in the San Luis Valley, near Mosca 



MONTE VISTA— DEL NORTE 

The San Luis Valley is bowl- shaped, with Alamosa at the center, almost 
at the lowest point, and the land rising in every direction. On the higher 
slopes the soil is coarser than lower down, and this coarse nature, with the 
rapid slope, gives it quick drainage. 

The first highly successful farming in the San Luis Valley was done about 
Del Norte and Monte Vista, on the Rio Grande del Norte, near where it 
emerges from its canons upon the level plain of the valley. Del Norte, at the 
mouth of the canon, is the oldest town in the valley and in some regards the 
most beautiful, with buildings of stone, with streets edged with large trees, 
and with gardens in which are grown a wide profusion of fruits and vege- 
tables. Here are the Federal headquarters for the San Luis Valley — the 
United States Land Office and the United States District Court room — and 
Del Norte is also the county seat of Rio Grande County. The fields first tilled 
about Del Norte are still wonderfully fertile, and the biggest records of wheat 
and potato production are from this vicinity. 

Monte Vista is the most active agricultural center of the San Luis Valley. 
Here, on both sides of the Rio Grande del Norte, is an area of nearly 300,000 
acres of land, covered with irrigating ditches, where enormous crops of peas, 
wheat, oats, potatoes, sugar beets and hogs and fat lambs are produced every 
year. Monte Vista is a beautiful town, with shaded streets, cement sidewalks, 
a very fine class of residences, stores, banks and hotels. The Denver & Rio 
Grande Railroad has a handsome buff brick station building, and opposite the 
depot the enterprising people of the city have established a park, whose velvet 
lawns and magnificent flower beds show the new arrival, when he gets off the 
train, that he is in a rich and productive country. 

The soil north of Monte Vista is what is known locally as "gravel" — 
a very fine black sandy loam, with small pebbles mixed with it. All of this 



50 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



soil sub-irrigates. As water is run on the surface of the ground, the soil 
finally "fills" with water to within a few feet of the surface. The farmer 
then runs a few parallel ditches through his fields, and keeps them filled with 
water. The water surface quickly rises to the top of the ground, giving the 
plant roots an abundance of moisture. When the water is taken out of the 
ditches the underground water soon falls back to its old level two to three 
feet below, leaving the surface dry. By this plan the farmer is able to regu- 
late the water supply exactly, using much less water than with surface irriga- 
tion and with not more than one-fourth the labor. 

The whole region slopes sharply from the mountains, and the area where 
the soil is "filled" with water has been moving steadily backward up the 
slope, so that tens of thousands of acres of land have been brought under 
cultivation which it was thought a few years ago was too high to "sub." 
Lying just north and west of Monte Vista is an area of some 30,000 acres, 
much of which has never been plowed, because there has not been in sight the 
necessary water for its irrigation. The Colorado Valley Land Company, which 
operates the largest of the canals in the vicinity of Monte Vista, has now 
well along toward completion a reservoir of 43,000 acre feet capacity at Santa 
Maria Lake, in the headwaters of the Rio Grande. This, when completed, 
will furnish abundant water for all this new land, as well as plenty of storage 
water for all the other lands under the main canal. 

CENTER 

Twelve miles north and two miles east of Monte Vista is the town of 
Center, an "inland" residence and trading center. Here the newcomer is sur- 
prised to find a collection of beautiful houses — the homes of the farmers who 
till the land for several miles in each direction, but who have built at a 
common center largely for the social advantages. Center is surrounded by 
typical San Luis Valley farms, of which the owners are more like business 
men than the average conception of farmers. With their automobiles they 
visit their places and see that the steam plows do the work properly, super- 
vise the irrigation of the crops, the harvesting of the grain and the turning 
in of sheep and hogs to gather the peas, returning every night over perfect 
roads to their homes, sometimes ten miles from their fields. In the last few 
years, with the coming in of more careful Eastern farmers, more and more 
farm houses have been built out on the farms. Some of the San Luis Valley 
farm houses would grace the residence section of any town — built of pressed 
brick and stone, with all modern improvements and refinements, surrounded 
by lawns, fountains, and sometimes with trout ponds fed by the cold, clear 
waters of artesian wells, filled with speckled beauties. 

Much of the land about Center and tributary to Monte Vista is irrigated 
by the Farmers' Union ditch. This canal, in some years, has not had a sure 
supply of water all summer, but all the lands watered by it have been included 
in an irrigation district, and a reservoir with a total capacity of 46,000 acre 
feet is well along toward completion in the mountains at the head of the 
Rio Grande. The dam at the reservoir, which will be partly filled for the 
irrigation season of 1912 and completed for 1913, is 100 feet high and is 580 
feet thick at the base. The structure is of loose rock placed by hand and 
faced with packed soil and the cost will be about $400,000. There are 40,000 
acres in the irrigation district, so that the additional cost per acre to secure 
an absolutely perfect water right will not much exceed $10 per acre, and this 
runs for twenty years. 

Big Drainage Operations 

East of Center and partly included in the Rio Grande district is a region 
once very productive, but which has filled with water to such an extent that 
it will no longer raise crops. Two different companies have been digging 
drainage ditches across this area, and the drainage operations have proved to 
be an entire success. More than 20,000 acres of land, once worthless, are now 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 51 



again ready for the plow, with assured water rights, and some 20,000 acres 
more are being reclaimed by the same methods. After the drainage ditches 
have run a short time the water in them flows almost pure, soft and free 
from alkali, so that it can be used again for the irrigation of lands further 
down the slope. 

Mosca and Hooper are the towns of settlements in about the center of 
the valley, on the line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad that runs from 
Alamosa to Salida. When the settlement of the San Luis Valley was first 
begun, and the ditches that start from the Rio Grande near Monte Vista and 
Del Norte were extended to reach this region, it became one of the most won- 
derful sections of the state. Enormous crops of grain were produced, big 
mills and elevators were built with thriving towns about them. Then the 
soil filled with water, farms were abandoned and the whole region developed 
backward for fifteen years. Recent drainage developments have shown that 
a good deal of this land, given up as worthless, can actually be entirely 
reclaimed by drainage. It is as fertile now as it ever was, once the water is 
drained off. 

MOFFAT AND SAGUACHE 

The north end of the San Luis Valley lies in a flatiron shape, running to 
its point at the foot of Poncha Pass and widening to the south. To the east 
the Sangre de Cristo Range towers to heights of 14,000 feet in one sheer 




A Ranch Home in the San Luis Valley near Moffat 

ascent, without foothills or minor slopes. To the west are the Cochetopas, 
famous as the best hills in Colorado for grass and water for stock. This 
part of the valley has few streams and these are small. From the beginning 
of settlement it was apportioned in immense areas as winter pastures for 
cattle, or as hay meadows. Most of the streams that enter this part of the 
valley sink before they go very far from the mountains, and in spring each 
little river spreads out under ground to moisten a large area, making wild 
hay grow luxuriantly. The soils of this region have been known to be the 
most fertile of the whole valley. In the last few years a closer settlement 
has begun, but the areas are so vast that the extent and importance of this 
new movement are but little realized. In all this region artesian wells give a 
good flow. In addition, there is sheet water at from eleven to sixteen feet 
from the surface, and when wells are sunk the most persistent pumping fails 
to lower them more than a few feet. It has been shown that by irrigating 
for a few years, until its roots get down to water, luxuriant alfalfa can be 
grown without any further irrigation. Large crops of all kinds of grains, pota- 
toes and beets are grown with a minimum of irrigation. There is a total area 



52 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



of land of good quality and underlaid with water of 200,000 acres in the north 
end of the San Luis Valley, and this is offered for sale at prices ranging from 
$15 to $75 an acre, more of it at nearer the first price than the last. 

Saguache, which is the county seat of Saguache County, is off the rail- 
road, and Moffat, fourteen miles east on the railroad, is the starting point 
for the stage. Both towns have had a good recent growth, but the develop- 
ment of Moffat has been most rapid. In two years the school attendance at 
Moffat has increased ten- fold, a lot of new blood has come into the town, new 
buildings have been put up and many new enterprises begun. Moffat was 
once famous as a cattle and sheep shipping point, and while the growth of 
agriculture has cut down the winter ranges to some extent, the enormous 
area of grassed mountains on each side will always make the stock industry 
an important one in this end of the San Luis Valley. 

THE TERRACE RESERVOIR 

Each of the rivers that flowed from the west into the San Luis Valley 
when the valley was a "lake" brought down and deposited in the edge of the 
waters a great mound or delta of loose materials. Now that the lake is gone, 
these old deltas constitute the richest and best drained soils in the valley. 
One of them is the Del Norte-Monte Vista-Center section. Another takes in 
the very rich Antonito-Romeo-Manassa section of the Conejos River, and the 
third is at the mouths of the La Jara and Alamosa creek canons, from ten to 
twenty miles south of Monte Vista and eighteen miles southwest of Alamosa. 
Here is a region which the landseeker in the San Luis Valley would do well 
to investigate. The soil is a "gravel" very similar to that about Monte Vista 
and Center, but with a shade more of a reddish clay in it. The slope is very 
rapid. Being quite a little higher, in long, round slopes, than the general 
level of the valley, the land is all well drained. All of this area, lying about 
the lines of old ditches, has been organized into the Terrace Reservoir district, 
covering some 40,000 acres. The district acquired the La Jara reservoir on 
La Jara Creek, and has nearing completion the Terrace reservoir on Alamosa 
Creek. The Terrace reservoir has been constructed by washing an immense 
hydraulic dam from the hillsides into the canon of the Alamosa River, dam- 
ming that stream back for a distance of four miles, giving a capacity of more 
than 40,000 acre feet of water. This reservoir has been nearly completed in 
the season of 1911 and the money is in hand to finish it in 1912. The two 
r servoirs will supplement the natural spring and early summer flow of the 
two streams, which is quite dependable, and furnish reliable water rights for 
some 40,000 acres of good land. The cost of these water rights will be in the 
neighborhood of $20 per acre, which will be in the form of twenty-year bonds. 
Lands under this system can now be bought at from $10 to $60 per acre. The 
construction of a proposed sugar beet railway across the valley north and 
south will put all this land in close touch with transportation. It is at present 
from twelve miles upward distant from the stations of Monte Vista, La Jara 
and Estrella on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. 

THE TRINCHERA ESTATE 

All that portion of the southern end of the San Luis Valley east of the 
Rio Grande River was included in an old Mexican land grant, and for a good 
many years there was practically no development of this part of the valley, 
though the soil was as rich and conditions as favorable as in sections where 
a veritable boom was on. The main broad gauge line of the Denver & Rio 
Grande from Alamosa to La Veta Pass crosses the valley through the north 
end of this area. Some years ago, through a proposition with some co-opera- 
tive features, about 65,000 acres of this land were divided among some 6,000 
people from all parts of the United States. With each piece of land was 
allotted a town lot in the city of Blanca. Very extensive irrigation works 
have been constructed, and the Blanca section and the town of Blanca have 
been wonderfully improved and developed. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



53 



A large area of land east of Alamosa which cannot be watered from any 
available stream has recently been sold to a big colonization company, which 
proposes to accomplish its development by pumping the water from about ten 
feet below the surface and by the use of artesian wells. 

THE COSTILLA ESTATE 

A section of the San Luis Valley which in a few years has been trans- 
formed from a sheep pasture sparsely inhabited by Mexicans into a prosperous 
empire is what is known as the Costilla Estate. The original Mexican land 
grant extended from the Rio Grande del Norte eastward to the summit of the 
Culebra Range. Two years ago it was a vast sagebrush area, utilized for the 
ranging of cattle and sheep; today it is dotted with cultivated farms pro- 
ducing record breaking crops of wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, field peas, pota- 
toes, sugar beets, vegetables of all kinds and fruits acclimated to this latitude 
and altitude. 

The north line of the Estate is located sixteen miles south of the Alamosa- 
Pueblo line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. To solve the transportation 
problem a standard gauge railroad was constructed from Blanca south thirty- 
two miles to Jarosa, a station located on the Colorado-New Mexico line. This 
railroad is constructed with eighty-pound steel rails, well ballasted and sup- 
plied with side tracks, commodious depots, freight houses, stock chutes and 
all necessary facilities and equipment. No farmer has more than six miles 
to haul his products for shipment. 

The thriving towns of San Acacio, Mesita and Jarosa have been estab- 
lished with general merchandise stores, lumber and coal yards, newspaper and 
printing offices, liveries, garages, hotels, banks, drug stores and physicians, 
barber shops, churches, school houses, etc. 

A mammoth reservoir and canal system was designed and the big "San- 
chez" dam completed October 1, 1911. This dam contains 525,000 cubic yards 
of material, is 1,410 feet long on top, 600 feet thick at base and 120 feet high, 
thoroughly riprapped with two feet of stone on reservoir side. The reser- 
voir is five and one-half miles long by two miles wide, seventeen and one-half 
miles around its shore line, and will store 104,000 acre feet. In addition to 





Reservoir on the Costilla Estate 



54 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



this large reservoir, three other reservoirs have been constructed at different 
localities on the Estate, storing, when full, an additional 9,000 acre feet. 
Reinforced concrete headgates have been built at points where necessary, 
main line canals and lateral ditches with their drops and slides have been 
constructed and highway bridges established. Twenty-two thousand acres 
have been sold to farmers from Colorado and the Middle West, the average 
holding being 160 acres. Thirty per cent, of the purchasers have located on 
or improved their land. All buildings, fences and other improvements are of 
the most permanent character. 

The sales and settlement to date have taken care of only about twenty- 
five per cent, of the whole available area in the Costilla Estate, and when the 
full 100,000 acres of good land shall have been occupied by farmers of the 
same high class, who are coming in rapidly, the Costilla Estate is destined to 
have a fame independent of that of the San Luis Valley. 

At the south end of the Costilla Estate the level country still extends 
into New Mexico, and work is being carried along on irrigation projects to 
bring the waters of the Red River across to some especially fertile lands. 
In this section of the San Luis Valley more success has been attained in fruit 
growing than in any other parts. 

LA JARA 

La Jara is a station on the Denver & Rio Grande, fifteen miles southwest 
of Alamosa, on the closely adjoining bottoms of the Alamosa and La Jara 
creeks, which rise in the Continental Divide at the west of the valley and 
flow to the Rio Grande. The bottoms of these rivers include some of the most 
fertile lands in the valley. Once nearly all this country was included in large 
cattle ranches, but in late years the process of subdivision and settlement has 
put thousands upon thousands of acres of grass and brush lands under culti- 
vation. Great numbers of high grade Iowa and Kansas farmers have come 
into the La Jara section and are raising huge crops of small grains, peas, hogs, 
sheep and field peas. Just east of La Jara is the prosperous Mormon settle- 
ment of Sanford, where families are making a living from as little as ten 
acres of land, closely tilled. 

ANTONITO, ROMEO, MANASSA 

The second largest river in the San Luis Valley is the Conejos, which 
drains sixty miles of the Continental Divide, heavily wooded, and so has a 
strong flow late into the summer. The Conejos washed into the old lake bed 
an immense delta of rich volcanic soil, which now makes a hill rising two to 
three hundred feet above the general level of the valley. Antonito, at the 
south end of the valley, is a railroad junction, one branch of the Denver & 
Rio Grande going to Santa Fe and another to Durango and Silverton. About 
Antonito conditions especially favor the growing and ripening of field pea 
seed, and a large percentage of the peas planted in the San Luis Valley come 
from this point. There is a big flouring mill at Conejos, an old Mexican 
settlement about a mile from Antonito on the river. All up and down the 
Conejos River are farms which have been producing heavy crops since the 
time of the Mexican War, and are still rich and productive. 

Romeo and Manassa occupy the lower slopes of the big hill over which 
the Conejos River flows, Manassa being two and one-half miles east of the 
Romeo station and off the rails. At Manassa a Mormon colony has been 
established prosperously for thirty years. Among the recent developments 
here is the growing of alfalfa without irrigation. The roots of the plants go 
down through the ground to the water and then pump their own supply with- 
out the need of surface irrigation. Manassa and Romeo produce immense 
crops of grains of all kinds, hogs, cattle and fat lambs, and since the sugar 
factory has been built at Monte Vista, Romeo and Manassa are only second 
to Monte Vista in beet acreage. Romeo is developing into a thriving town, 
with good stores, hotels, churches, a good bank and several substantial 
buildings. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 55 



A large acreage of sugar beets was produced in the Romeo and Manassa 
sections in 1911 and shipped to Monte Vista from Romeo and Bountiful sta- 
tions. In order to secure an assured supply of August irrigating water for 
this crop, work has been begun and the bonds sold for the construction of 
the Mogote reservoir. This will occupy a big basin in the foothills, about 
ten miles southwest of Romeo. The water will be brought from the Conejos 
River by a ditch which skirts the mountains and bores through to the reser- 
voir basin in a tunnel about half a mile long. The Mogote reservoir will store 
about 32,000 acre feet of water, and will furnish the necessary supplementary 
water to about 40,000 acres of land. 

The rush into the San Luis Valley seems to have just begun. So vast 
is the area and so great the opportunities for development that, although 
literally thousands of new settlers have found new and prosperous homes 
there in the last ten years, there is now on the market more new land of 
proved quality and certain water supply than there ever was before. It will 
take but a few years to dispose of this area, and then the San Luis Valley 
will become one of the celebrated places of the United States — the place where 
the greatest tonnage of pork or wheat or potatoes can be produced with the 
least amount of labor. 



Chapter X. 



THE GREAT SAN JUAN BASIN— DURANGO AND VICINITY— ARCHU- 
LETA COUNTY— PINE RIVER VALLEY— ANIMAS VALLEY— THE 
FARMINGTON-AZTEC FRUIT DISTRICT— MONTEZUMA VALLEY 

IN the southwestern quarter of Colorado, and extending into New Mexico, is 
a region so vast in extent, so wonderful in its natural resources, so varied 

in the nature of its agriculture, so well watered by a dozen large rivers 
and so favored in a climatic way that any description of it naturally falls into 
superlatives. 

The San Juan Basin has just started an era of agricultural development. 
Prices, considering quality, are exceedingly low. Farmers and new settlers 
are at a high premium, and can therefore get bargains for the investment 
of their capital and their labor which can hardly be equaled anywhere else in 
the United States. 

The San Juan Basin is the area drained by the San Juan River in Colo- 
rado and New Mexico and extending west into Utah. It covers nearly a 
thousand square miles, and ranges in elevation from the summits of the Con- 
tinental Divide down to about 3,000 feet, where the San Juan River drops into 
the Grand Caiion of the Colorado. The higher slopes are heavily clothed in 
lumber. The mountains are rich in minerals and precious metals. The lower 
slopes are underlaid with coal of the finest quality. A million acres of fertile 
land extend in long, open valleys and mesas. Through all this thread a dozen 
big rivers, kept filled by the melting snows on the higher peaks. There are 
hundreds of good reservoir sites to supplement the summer flow. Railroads, 
built to reach the coal measures, the lumber camps and the precious-metal 
mines, cross the basin in all directions and give access to all the valleys. 

Capital has been pouring into the San Juan Basin for agricultural invest- 
ments for several years. Some large irrigation canals have been completed, 
and more are on the way. The whole region is on the brink of a tremendous 
forward movement, which will people these silent valleys and mesas with a 
prosperous and diligent class of settlers, which will make towns where now 
are villages and cities where now are towns — and both cities and towns where 
there is nothing now but sagebrush and cedars. 



56 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



DURANGO 

Durango, a city of 5,000 people, is the metropolis of the San Juan Basin. 
The permanent prosperity of Durango rests upon a very solid basis. It is 
bounded on three sides by gold, silver, copper and lead mines, and one of 
the largest and most complete smelter plants in the West gives steady 
employment to hundreds of men. Immense deposits of coal begin in the city 
limits and extend west and south. The coal is of the finest quality for steam 
or domestic use, and the providing of a rail outlet to the Pacific Coast, which 
is one of the probable developments of the hear future, will produce a greatly 
increased activity in these coal fields. 

Durango also has an almost unlimited supply of cheap power from the 
mountain streams in the canons above. Electric energy is so cheap in 
Durango that it is used not only for lighting but for cooking and heating in 
houses. It is estimated that the present supply of power could be increased 
ten- fold at other sites for power plants within twenty-five miles of Durango. 

Besides coal and precious metals, the hills about Durango are laden with 
clays suitable for all kinds of bricks and pottery, with cement rock, building 
stone, marble, granite and onyx, forming the basis for a future manufacturing 
industry of large range. Durango is a prominent railroad center, being the 
terminus of the Denver & Rio Grande main narrow gauge system, its Silverton 
branch and the Farmington standard gauge branch, also of the Rio Grande 
Southern, all having a Union Depot. The altitude is 6,500 feet. Other fea- 
tures of the city are an electric street car line through the business center; 
pure water without stint, supplied from the Florida River; a modern sewer 
system; broad streets; cement sidewalks; splendid schools; churches; a Car- 
negie Library; public buildings; banks; hotels; wholesale and retail stores; 
two flour mills; La Plata Hatchery, from which the trout streams are stocked; 
United States Land Office; headquarters for San Juan Forest Reserve, and a 
fine new Government building for which the last Congress made the initial 
appropriation. 

Silverton, forty-five miles north of Durango, at the head of the Animas 
Valley, is the center of what has been called "The Most Permanent Mining 
District in the United States." Discovered in 1874, its mines have made a 
score of millionaires and have enriched hundreds of families, besides support- 
ing thousands of miners and their wives. With all this, the surface has only 
been skimmed and the high grade ores taken, leaving enough low grade gold 
ores to form the basis of milling operations for a good many decades to come. 
From Silverton, which is reached by a branch of the Denver & Rio Grande, 
radiate several short railway lines to different mines. The whole district 
affords a large and a permanent home market for a great deal of the meat 
and produce raised on the lower lands of the San Juan Basin. 

West of Durango is the La Plata Range, with the Rio Grande Southern 
Railroad following along its lower slopes. Here are other immense deposits 
of ore, some of which, recently discovered, is fabulously rich. In the Needles 
Mountains, northeast of Durango, is still another prosperous mining district, 
with great future probabilities. All these developments are of direct interest 
to the prospective settlers, because mines mean markets, right at hand, and 
at high prices, for the products of the fields. 

THE ANIMAS VALLEY 
Men who have traveled through all parts of the world in search of the 
beautiful and picturesque stand spell-bound at their first glimpse of the 
Animas Valley, and declare that nowhere else in the world is a picture in 
which beauty and sublimity are so combined. The Animas Valley, which 
lies just north of Durango, is fourteen miles long and averages about a mile 
and a half in width. Through the center, in long, lazy loops, the Animas 
River flows in a succession of long stretches of smooth water and hurrying 
riffles. From wall to wall the valley is filled with farms — the deep green of 
alfalfa, golden wheat, and on the higher slopes prosperous orchards of apples, 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



57 



pears, plums and all kinds of deciduous fruits. On each side the mountains 
rise almost in precipices, showing masses of brilliant red, deep purple, laven- 
der and mauve rocks relieved by green trees. Still higher are mountains upon 
which the snows lie until late in the summer. 

Protected as it is by these mountains, the Animas Valley has singularly 
uniform seasons. In thirty years' experience there has never been a failure 
of fruit trees in the Animas Valley from frosts. The fruit raised in these 
orchards is of very high quality, bright in color, firm in texture, high flavored 
and entirely free from worms. The market demand has never been equaled, 
and many new orchards are being planted. Usually, in Colorado, fruit trees 
and pine trees grow in entirely different zones on the mountain slopes, the 
natural trees in most "fruit belts" being small and scrubby in growth. In 
the Animas Valley, however, bearing apple and pear trees flourish right in the 




Looking across the Animas Valley 

shadows of enormous pines. The summer climate is delightful, and in the 
last few years the higher slopes all along the valley have been largely bought 
by people of means who are developing them into beautiful country seats, and 
also planting trees which, when they come into bearing, will make these little 
farms as profitable as they are beautiful*. Land here sells at from $100 to 
$300 an acre; 

Trimble Springs, an outflow of very hot waters of proved curative values, 
is in the center of the Animas Valley, and has its full complement of a fine 
hotel, beautiful grounds, bath houses and plunge baths. 

ARCHULETA COUNTY— EAST SAN JUAN BASIN 
The San Juan Mountains, which are that portion of the Continental 
Divide surrounding the San Juan Basin on the east and north, descend very 
rapidly on the Western Slope. Archuleta County occupies this semi-circle, 
and is watered by the San Juan River, which has its sources in its mountains. 
There is in this section a large area of rolling plateau country, once heavily 
covered with trees, but which has been lumbered off. Lying at an elevation 
of 7,500 to 8,000 feet, these lands, since the trees were cut off, have become 
covered with a very heavy growth of grass, making summer pastures for 



58 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



thousands of cattle and literally millions of sheep. The same general con- 
ditions extend into New Mexico along the Continental Divide. 

Being high and close to the high mountains, this region gets more rain 
than further down the slope, and for years it has been known that good 
gardens could be grown without irrigation. Latterly, people have begun to 
pull off the old rotting stumps and plant crops of grain, potatoes and field 
peas to be raised without irrigation. Some very remarkable crops have been 
produced from these fields. These cut- over lands can be obtained at from 
$5 to $10 per acre. The winters are somewhat severe, but no more so than in 
Iowa or Illinois. Wood is plenty, coal is cheap, there is an abundance of water 
for domestic purposes, the scenery is magnificent, and the climate is cool, 
clear and healthful. It is estimated that there is now available more than 
20,000 acres of such lands as these, affording specially good opportunities for 
general farming and also for dairying, as from spring to fall milk cows can 
wade knee-deep in the rich grasses of the mountain sides. 

Pagosa Springs, the county seat of Archuleta County, is on a branch line 
of the Denver & Rio Grande road. Here is located the largest hot springs 
on the American continent, of great medicinal qualities, surrounded by beau- 
tiful and striking scenery and in a bracing climate. Development is proceed- 
ing rapidly and in times to come Pagosa Springs will be one of the great 
watering places of the Rocky Mountain region. 

ARBOLES— ALLISON— TIFFANY 

Along the San Juan River above and below Pagosa Springs are a number 
of irrigated areas. The most important of these is about Arboles, near which 
point the main Durango line of the Denver & Rio Grande crosses again into 
Colorado after a southern detour through New Mexico, from which eight miles 
west is Allison, the first railroad town in La Plata County coming from the 
east, in the heart of a broad stretch of choice tillable land. There are 2,500 
acres in cultivation and 10,000 under water. In 1911 there were 190 acres in 
orchard. 

Three miles west of Allison is Tiffany, another promising young town, 
where a wide acreage is being brought under irrigation. A good store, school 
and several attractive dwellings attest permanency. 

IGNACIO— THE SOUTHERN UTE INDIAN LANDS. 

The whole southwestern corner of Colorado was at one time included 
within the limits of the Southern Ute Indian reservation. About ten years 
ago a new treaty was made with the Indians by which all of them who wished 
might have lands allotted to them in severalty, while the remainder of the 
eastern end of the reservation was to be thrown open for settlement. The 
remainder of the tribe, which preferred the old tribal or communal form of 
ownership, withdrew to a smaller reservation at the west end. Sixty-eight 
thousand acres of land were selected by the Indians, of which some 54,000 
acres are still in Indian ownership, the rest having gone to the whites. The 
Indians for the most part occupy the river valleys, while the whites irrigate 
the higher mesas. They are not savages, but are a quiet, indolent but honest 
race, and some of them are showing records of production in no wise inferior 
to their white neighbors. Many of these Indian settlers have taken allot- 
ments in the Pine River Valley. Ignacio was long the chief agency for the 
Southern Utes, but is now developing into a prosperous farming town, with 
good buildings. Several ambitious irrigation projects, which will water in all 
nearly a hundred thousand acres of land, center about Ignacio. 

This old Indian country, which includes Ignacio, Allison, Tiffany and 
Bayfield, is one of the most beautiful new countries ever opened to settlement. 
It lies in rolling hills and wide bowl-shaped valleys. The hills are crowned 
with pinons and cedars, and in the valleys there are great pines and spruces. 
Beyond are the higher ridges of the San Juan Mountains. The grass grows 
luxuriantly. The water which comes from the mountain streams sparkles 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



59 



clear as crystal in the irrigation ditches. On all sides, above the lines of the 
irrigation ditches, extend thousands of acres of splendid pasture lands. The 
streams are full of trout, and the mountains beyond teem with game of all 
kinds. A day's drive from any of these points will bring a man into a sports- 
man's paradise for hunting or fishing. 

This is also a natural grass country. Under irrigation, blue grass flour- 
ishes as it does in Kentucky. All kinds of clovers also do well. Alfalfa cuts 
four to five tons per acre a year. Grains yield extraordinarily well, and the 
red soil has no superior for potatoes in Colorado. 

The region is especially adapted for dairying, both pasture and hay being 
abundant, and the number of cows and creameries is increasing as fast as 
eastern farmers can get on the ground. 

BAYFIELD— THE PINE RIVER COUNTRY 

Lying just north of the boundaries of the old Indian reservation in the 
valley of Pine River and the adjoining mesas is the Bayfield settlement, cen- 
tering at the little town of Bayfield, ten miles off the railroad. 

White people began developing this region a quarter of a century ago, 
and it is one of the most beautiful and most highly productive sections of 
the whole San Juan Basin. The farms are well tilled and highly improved, 
and the annual production of wheat, oats, potatoes, hay and dairy products 
is very large. The town of Bayfield occupies a beautiful location on the 
banks of Pine River and is a lively and well built little town. Its buildings 
and business enterprises include a creamery, flouring mill, fine school, churches, 
and a high class of stores. 

A drive, in spring and summer, over the mesas and through the valleys 
of the Bayfield section opens a series of pictures hardly to be equaled in the 
world, vistas of mountains and wooded hills alternating with fields and farms, 
all framed in the tender green of the Colorado juniper. 

FLORIDA MESA— OXFORD 

The main line to Durango crosses through the Pine Creek country, whose 
western shipping point is at the thriving little town of Oxford. The line then 
dips down into the little valley of Florida Creek and then climbs again to 




Harvesting at Bayfield 



6o 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 




Third Cutting of Alfalfa, near Oxford 

cross Florida Mesa. This immense plateau covers a total area of close to 
25,000 acres. Of this there is now well watered about 7,000 acres, and a new 
canal and irrigation system taking its water from Florida Creek will irrigate 
15,000 acres more. This whole mesa has a deep, rich, red sandy soil, practi- 
cally uniform in quality, and with perfect drainage. Water can be brought 
from both the Animas and the Florida rivers, but most of the supply will 
come from the Florida, which needs to be reinforced with a few reservoirs, 
for which sites are available. 



FORT LEWIS MESA— THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 

Corresponding to Florida Mesa, only lying west of Durango and of the 
Animas River, which bounds Florida Mesa on the west, is the Fort Lewis 
Mesa. Here is nearly 100,000 acres of good land, lying in long, easy slopes, 
ready for development. Some of the largest crops produced in the San Juan 
Basin come from the farms on Fort Lewis Mesa, of which about 5,000 acres 
are now farmed. 

At the head of Florida Mesa is what was once the Fort Lewis Indian 
School, but which the Federal Government has deeded to the state of Colo- 
rado, the gift including 6,000 acres of fine farming lands, buildings worth 
$50,000, and water rights and all appurtenances and equipment. Here the 
state of Colorado has established an agricultural college and experimental 
station. Not only will the young farmers of the San Juan Basin find here a 
place where they can come and learn, but continued experiments will be made 
to determine the crops and methods which will produce the best returns in 
the conditions peculiar to that area. 

The price of good lands with good water rights on the mesas from Allison 
on the east to Fort Lewis on the west ranges from $50 to $150 per acre, with 
good water rights. A great deal of the land is partly covered with piiion and 
juniper trees, but the clearing of these is less of a task than a stranger would 
think. The pinon and juniper are both shallow rooted trees, and a cable tied 
to the trunk eight feet above the ground and brought to a stump puller 
readily uproots the tree and drags it entire to a central heap. When the 
whole area to be cleared has been pulled into windrows, the touch of a match 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 61 



gets the wood out of the way. Both pifion and cedar are excellent firewoods, 
and many settlers have piled up by their houses wood enough to last them a 
lifetime, gathered when clearing their lands. 

The juniper (or Rocky Mountain cedar, as it is called locally) makes 
excellent fence posts, which practically never rot. These posts and the larger 
logs are often used in making barns and sheds. 

The range of crops in this whole area is a large one. The first crops 
planted on cleared lands are usually small grains and potatoes. A good many 
fruit trees have been set out. The hog growing industry, based on alfalfa, 
skim-milk and barley, is developing rapidly. Dairying is another growing 
interest. The development of the sugar beet industry here on a large scale 
is a matter only of time. Over all these lands extensive experiments have 
been carried on, which show a large tonnage of beets to the acre and an 
extraordinarily high sugar content in the beets. 

The abundant free summer range, the favorable winter climate and the 
abundance with which alfalfa and other hays and grains for fattening can be 
produced, indicate that live stock, cattle, sheep and hogs will always be a 
dominant industry. On the higher mesas field, peas grow and yield abun- 
dantly. There are few regions which are good alfalfa countries and at the 
same time good field pea countries, but this is one of them. 



Wfcu^fcnM^— »i» in ^.Aj 1 ... a B1 




— t~r/ . :'; 




*■>' *£-*.- ■■ " t 

















On the Fort Lewis Mesa, Southwestern Colorado. Here the State maintains an 

Agricultural College 

MANCOS AND THE CLIFF DWELLER COUNTRY 

A short distance west of Durango, on the Rio Grande Southern, is the 
town of Mancos, in the midst of a thickly settled valley of the same name. 
Mancos is a thriving town, the shipping point for a large area of cattle and 
sheep ranges and farming lands extending westward even into Utah. It is 
also the point from which are best reached the famous Cliff Dweller ruins of 
southwestern Colorado. The larger and more accessible of these ruins have 
been included by Congress in the Mesa Verde National Park. A magnificent 
roadway, which climbs for miles along the brow of cliffs two thousand feet 
above the valley, is being built by the government to reach these ruins. 
The Cliff Dwellers are a vanished race. In some past time, perhaps hundreds 
of years ago, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of years, they occupied 
the region of canons and mesas all along the southern boundary of what is 
now Colorado. They built great houses of stone, sometimes in the inacces- 
sible alcoves of the caiions, reached only by ladders, and sometime* great 



62 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 




Near Mancos there are Thousands of Acres of Raw Land Awaiting the Settler 
Water for Irrigation is there 

pueblos out in the valleys. They were farmers, irrigators, weavers and pot- 
tery makers of considerable skill — and they have completely vanished from 
the earth, leaving their ruins with a few relics and mummies for ethnologists 
to wonder over. 

The Mancos Valley, while small, has many attractions for the home- 
seeker. The soil is mostly a disintegrated granite from the mountains, very 
mellow, soft and fertile. There is an abundance of water for irrigation at all 
seasons of the year. Large crops of wheat, oats, alfalfa and potatoes are 
raised and shipped from Mancos station, and considerable success has been 
attained in raising the hardier fruits. 

THE MONTEZUMA VALLEY 

Dolores, a lively little town in the narrow valley of the Dolores River, 
is the gateway to an immense territory upon which will soon be established 
thousands of prosperous farmsteads. This includes the famous Montezuma 
Valley and a vast empire of valleys and mesas, extending south and west into 
New Mexico and Arizona. 

The Dolores is a river of considerable size, flowing through a narrow 
valley, so having an excess of water. About two miles below the town of 
Dolores starts a tunnel which penetrates the low divide and carries the water 
of the river through to the Montezuma Valley. 

This is a bowl-shaped valley of almost 100,000 acres, nearly circular in 
form, with the higher slopes clothed to a considerable extent with juniper 
groves. Cortez, twelve miles off the railroad, and the county seat of Monte- 
zuma County, is the principal town of this valley. Cortez is a lively little 
town with good stores, hotel, bank, churches and some well built business 
blocks. It is almost in the center of the valley. 

The irrigation system of the Montezuma Valley has been the growth of 
years, a very large expenditure of money being involved in damming the 
Dolores River, cutting a tunnel through the ridge and building the diversion 
works. One company which undertook the enterprise and did more than a 
million dollars' worth of work, failed before completion. An irrigation district 
was formed a few years ago, the first under the Colorado Irrigation District 
law. The old work was bought at about one-fourth of its value, bonds paid 
for completion, and some sixty thousand acres of land have been given a good 
water right at a net expense of about $18 per acre. The actual cost of this 
work was above $30 per acre, but the new settlers in the Montezuma Valley 
get the full advantage of the failure of the first company in the reduced total 
cost to them. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



63 



Lands and Settlement 

The lands in the Montezuma Valley include high slopes of red soil, thickly 
grown with cedars and pinons, and a considerable area of chocolate colored 
lands, in level stretches, so fertile that sagebrush on the uncleared lands often 
reaches a height of fifteen feet. Very large crops of small grains, potatoes 
and alfalfa are produced on these lands, while the fruit raised on the higher 
slopes is rated among the best in the state of Colorado. 

Besides the 60,000 acres watered by the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Dis- 
trict, some 12,000 acres of excellent lands lying on the slopes above is now 
under water from what is known as the Summit Reservoir and Irrigation 
District. This project embraces three reservoirs, with a combined capacity of 
nearly 10,000 acre feet, and forty miles of diversion and distribution canals. 
These lands, like those in the Montezuma Valley below, are being rapidly set- 
tled up, and a very fine class of improvements is being placed on some of the 
farms. 

Lebanon is a town and settlement between Cortez and the railroad point 
for this whole section, Dolores. Lebanon is in the cedars, of which several 
square miles have been cleared away and replaced with orchards and farms. 
A substantial town has been built, and many hundreds of new acres of 
orchard are set out annually. 

At the west end of the Montezuma Valley, in McElmo Caiion, is the Gal- 
loway Brothers orchard, now owned by the McElmo Orchard Company. The 
property includes seventy acres of apples, pears and peaches, all in full bear- 
ing. This orchard has for years had the habit of taking about all the prizes 
in sight at the Colorado State Fair and other exhibits, and is a demonstra- 
tion of what can be done over nearly the whole area drained by McElmo 
Creek. 

Lands in this region, which is best reached by stage from Dolores, on the 
Rio Grande Southern Railroad, sell at all the way from $10 to $75 per acre, 
subject to a bond issue of about $18 more, which is payable in eighteen years. 
Very easy terms to settlers is the rule in the region, and the man whose cap- 
ital is to be measured more in determination than in dollars and cents will 
find opportunities here for him to gain a competence with a very small cash 
start. 



jgnflMMHHflBRHriHBfii 



^ar 



, '■'■ ... 









Spring Plowing in the Montezuma Valley 



6 4 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Chapter XI. 



MONTROSE COUNTY— THE UNCOMPAHGRE VALLEY— THE GREAT 

GOVERNMENT PROJECT — MONTROSE — OLATHE — WESTERN 

MONTROSE COUNTY— SAN MIGUEL MESAS— NORWOOD— 

NATURITA— NUCLA— REDLANDS— LILLYLANDS— 

WEST PARADOX VALLEY 

THE first project launched by the United States Reclamation Service was 
the irrigation of the Uncompahgre Valley. It still stands at the head of 
the Government works, for engineering skill and success, and for the 
development and progress made by the farmers since the water was turned to 
them. 

The Gunnison tunnel, built by the Reclamation Service, penetrates the 
Vernal Mesa, a great ridge of sandstone and granite that divides the narrow 
canon of the Gunnison River from the broad, fertile levels of the Uncom- 
pahgre Valley. Through 30,600 feet, or five and three-fourths miles, this tun- 
nel, lined throughout with concrete, brings a mighty river to make fertile 
more than 150,000 acres of lands. This tunnel reached completion and was 
opened by President Taft in September, 1909, with formal ceremonies, and 
when, after the official pressing of the button, the turbid waters of the Gunni- 
son poured out of the massive portals a new era dawned for the Uncompahgre. 

The development of the Uncompahgre has been similar to the bursting 
out of the waters under the President's touch. For thirty years the Uncom- 
pahgre Valley has been known to have soils of incomparable fertility and 
climatic conditions which assured full crops of fruit and other products, all of 
the highest quality. Water was scarce. The Uncompahgre River, which 
flows through the valley, is small in volume and fickle in flow. Only a very 




Government Irrigation Canal carrying water from the Gunnison Tunnel 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 65 



small part of the land which could be reached by ditches could be sufficiently 
watered, and very serious disasters followed attempts to spread the meager 
supply of water out too thin. 

But since an abundance of water has been at hand, the Uncompahgre 
Valley has in one bound taken its place at the head of the list of prosperous, 
productive and diversified farming valleys in the state of Colorado. 

Less than one-third of the valley has yet been occupied by farmers, but 
settlement is now going forward at the rate of 100 acres a day, and the tide 
seems to be increasing. At this rate, in less than a year the bulk of all this 
vast area of land will be producing big crops of alfalfa, potatoes, sugar beets, 
wheat, oats, barley, hogs, or growing fruit trees into orchards. 

Location and Climate 

The Uncompahgre (pronounced Oon-kum-pah-gre) Valley lies in the 
very heart of the Rocky Mountains, on the Pacific slope, about 300 miles 
southwest of Denver and about 230 miles exactly west of Pueblo. It is 
reached by the Gunnison line of the Denver & Rio Grande. The narrow 
gauge leaves the main line at Salida, crosses the continental divide at Mar- 
shall Pass, by a route whose scenic splendors and engineering achievements 
have never been equaled, descends into the valley of the Gunnison River and 
follows that large stream down through valleys and canons that grow ever 
narrower. Finally, after passing Curecanti Needle, the granite spire which 
has become the scenic trademark of the Denver & Rio Grande system, the 
canon becomes so narrow that there is not even room for the tracks, and the 
train climbs up the walls, crosses to the head of Cedar Creek across Cerro 
Summit, and rolls down into the wide Uncompahgre Valley. 

The Uncompahgre Valley has mountains on every side of it; to the east 
the Sawtooth Mountains, so called for their jagged outlines; to the south 
the San Miguel Range, towering to above 14,000 feet, and a part of the 
backbone of the continent; to the west the rounded Horsefly Mountains, 
whose summits are covered with grassy pastures; and to the north the Grand 
Mesa, whose flat top, set aside as a Government forest reserve, alternates 
with grassy meadows, thickets of aspen and forests of spruce and pine, in 
which game of all kinds find shelter. The Uncompahgre Valley itself lies 
in level mesas and in gentle slopes, an average of twelve miles wide and 
thirty-five miles long, sheltered from storms, the warmth of sunshine almost 
every day of the year tempered by the breezes from the mountains, the soil 
of great depth and inexhaustible richness, and the climate favoring the 
growth and development of every vegetable from grain and hay to the rich- 
est flavored fruits, and every animal from the lowest farm product to the 
highest — man. 

The Uncompahgre Valley is not one vast level stretch, from hill to hill, 
like some other valleys in Colorado, but is a series of benches or terraces, 
rising one above the other. At the southeast end, where the Uncompahgre 
River enters the valley, the altitude is about 6,000 feet. At the northeast 
end, where the Uncompahgre empties into the Gunnison, the altitude is 
4,900 feet, making a fall of 1,100 feet in about thirty miles. This rapid 
slope permits of the water being carried to the highest of the mesas. 

The soils of the Uncompahgre Valley are divided into three general 
classes. South and west of the Uncompahgre River, the soil is mostly red 
in color, sandy in texture, with more or less stone. This soil is considered 
the best for fruit. North of the river, the soil is mostly gray or white and 
with more clay. This soil makes good fruit land, but is more especially 
adapted to general farming — alfalfa, small grains and sugar beets. In the 
bottoms of the Uncompahgre is a stretch of blackish soil which is exceed- 
ingly fertile, and upon which enormous crops of onions, celery, tomatoes and 
other vegetables are raised, as well as alfalfa, sugar beets and small fruits. 



66 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



How the Land Is Sold 

Most of the land in the Uncompahgre Valley had long been under private 
ownership when the Government work began. It is one of the conditions 
under which Government water is furnished that large holdings must be sub- 
divided and put into the possession of actual bona fide settlers. There has 
been to date sold and settled in the Uncompahgre Valley about 45,000 acres, 
and some 75,000 acres is still open for purchase. The purchasers pay for the 
land only, the Government water being payable in ten installments, annually 
without interest. Prices have nearly doubled in the last few years, and are 
still rising. Red lands vary in price with distance from the railway sta- 
tions, adjacent development and other features, the lowest being $100 per 
acre, and the highest as high as $350 — without trees or improvements. Bear- 
ing orchards sell as high as $750 per acre. In the gray soils, prices are 
ranging from $50 to $150 per acre. The cost of the Government water can now 
be pretty closely determined, and is placed at about $5.1 per acre. Besides 
the 120,000 acres of privately owned land, there is 24,000 acres of Govern- 
ment land which has been withdrawn from entry, but which will probably be 




Alfalfa Hay Field in the Uncompahgre Valley 

opened by a drawing in about a year. Those who are fortunate in this draw- 
ing will be able to homestead lands, under the Reclamation Act, in allot- 
ments of from forty acres upward. No charge is made for the land, but ten 
years' actual residence is required to perfect title. The drawing is being 
closely watched from all over the country, and the chances of the average man 
will probably be less than a thousand in one. Because of this fact, and because 
of the fact that most of the land owned by the Government is more or less 
remote, on the edge of the valley and rough, those who go to the valley 
looking for opportunities pay very little attention to the Government lands. 

Fruit Growing 

The most productive form of farming in the Uncompahgre Valley is 
fruit growing. Like other valleys of the Western Slope, the climate and soil 
of the Uncompahgre possess just those qualities which give fruits of all kinds 
superb color, the richest flavor and juiciness, and produce enormous yields, 
year after year. 

Uncompahgre Valley orchards have shown returns as high as $1,300 per 
acre from Elberta peaches; $800 per acre from apples; $600 per acre from 
grapes; $1,100 per acre from pears. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 67 



For men who wish general farming land, to raise grain and hay, live 
stock, sugar beets and potatoes, no better place can be found than the Uncom- 
pahgre Valley. 

Three crops of alfalfa hay every year can be raised on any of the land 
in the valley. Alfalfa enriches the ground it grows in. It yields three to five 
tons an acre, worth $4 to $5.50 per ton in the stack. It has the highest 
feeding value of any hay crop grown, nearly double that of the best tim- 
othy, ton for ton. It is eaten by every kind of farm stock, cattle, horses, 
sheep, pigs and chickens. It cures perfectly in this dry climate, keeps in 
stacks out of doors for years, and comes out, when the stack is cut, a 
bright fresh green in color. It makes rich yellow butter in winter, pasture in 
fall, and through summer can be pastured to hogs, which need no other food 
to grow on. 

Sugar Beets 

Every acre of land in the Uncompahgre Valley is suitable for growing 
sugar beets, but the industry will naturally center in the white or clay soil 
on the east side of the Uncompahgre River. This white soil has been proved 
to contain just the essential elements for a large growth of beets, and a 
higher sugar content, while at the same time the soil raises crop after crop 
without apparent diminution of its fertility. 

Sugar beets as raised in the Uncompahgre Valley produce from fifteen to 
thirty tons to the acre, of a value of $5 to $6.50 a ton. The actual cost of 
planting, tending, thinning, cultivating, harvesting and hauling an acre of 
beets rarely exceeds $45 an acre, leaving a net profit to the farmer of from 
$30 an acre up. 

There are now beet dumps at stations a few miles apart on the line of 
the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad the whole length of the valley. The beets 
are bought for the Grand Junction sugar factory, the farmer being paid $5 
per ton for the beets delivered at the dump, the factory paying freight. When 
the Uncompahgre Valley is further developed, it is probable that one or more 
factories for making beet sugar will be located in the A r alley, thus building up 
the towns, employing hundreds of people and enlarging the home markets. 

The year 1911 was the first in which the farmers of the Uncompahgre 
Valley had a chance to show what they could really do with plenty of water. 
There was in Montrose County, at the upper end of the Uncompahgre Valley, 
a total of 21,000 acres in cultivation. The total shipments of potatoes, apples, 
peaches, prunes, onions, beans, cabbage, sugar beets, hay, grain and live 
stock, from careful figures collected by the County Producers' Association, 
runs into the thousands of cars. This figure covers the exports and does not 
take into account the hay, grain, milk, butter, fruit and other produce con- 
sumed at home. The total value of these 4,430 cars will average close to $300 
each, or a total of some $1,300,000 — which makes an average export production 
of $60 per acre for the whole irrigated area of the county. 

Some Big Records 

The records of individual production support these aggregate figures. 
One case is cited of a manufacturer from Des Moines who planted forty acres 
in early potatoes. After he had dug, shipped and sold his crop, he put in bank 
a clean $8,000 profit. Among the statements supported by affidavits in the 
possession of the County Producers' Association are the following, all yields 
of 1911: 

Charles E. Heath sold $25 worth of apricots from one tree. 

John Kennedy sold $1,150 worth of strawberries from two acres. 

J. J. Ross raised 103 bushels of oats to the acre. 

Monell Brothers harvested from eight and two-thirds acres 492 bushels of 
wheat, which tested to 499 bushels by weight. From one Jonathan tree they 
picked twenty-nine boxes. This was on the gray soil, which the Monells 
have shown to be the equal of any, if handled right. 



68 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



J. W. Tripler sold from three-fourths acre of potatoes $215 worth. 

Ira G. Wetherill sold from one and one-sixth acres of potatoes $244.15 
worth. 

Howell Brothers raised 57 "% bushels spring wheat to the acre on fourteen 
acres, and its test was sixty-two pounds. They raised 621 bushels of Rural 
potatoes per acre on thirty acres. 

Live Stock — Sheep and Cattle 

In the last ten years the Uncompahgre Valley has three times taken the 
grand prize of the International Stock Show at Chicago for the best carload 
of fat steers. In 1909 and 1910 Al G. Neale of Montrose took this coveted 
trophy two years in succession. The slopes about the valley, particularly to 
the south and east and along the Vernal Mesa, are very well grassed. The 
winters are generally open, with little snow, and cattle and sheep pasture 
the year around. From the upper end of the valley a good many cars of fat 
lambs are shipped every year to the eastern market, right off the grass, with- 
out any pen- feeding at all, and command the highest prices. 

The incoming of a large proportion of high-grade Eastern farmers in the 
new settlement of the valley has greatly stimulated the production of prime 
live stock. Good corn is being raised, and cattle, sheep and hogs are being 
produced on the farms. 

Experiments made on many farms in 1911 showed that sugar beets 
fed to hogs gave a higher dollars-and-cents return than when shipped to the 
factory, when accompanied with just a little corn to harden the flesh and fat. 
From being an importer of pork a few years ago, the Uncompahgre Valley 
now exports fat hogs to the mining camps, and with its combination of alfalfa, 
sugar beets and corn, its farmers declare that they can produce half again 
as much pork per acre as the best corn lands of Iowa or Illinois. 

Potatoes 

In one season, in 1911, the Uncompahgre Valley reached the foremost 
position in potato production in the state of Colorado. Fifteen hundred cars 
were shipped, and many of these sold at prices around two cents a pound. 
While in some sections of Colorado blight cut down the crop, and over the 
country generally it was a bad year, the Uncompahgre Valley raised the big- 
gest crop in its history. 

Diversification of crops has been the keynote of the valley's recent prog- 
ress. The Uncompahgre Valley raises as fine fruit and as large crops as any 
valley in the state, and new orchards are being planted upon every farm, but 
attention is also paid to the raising of hogs, dairying, cattle raising, wheat, 
oats, potatoes, onions and sugar beets. Thousands of cars are shipped every 
year to the factory at Grand Junction, which pays for beets according to the 
sugar content, and the Montrose beets are among the richest in sugar received 
at Grand Junction. Under the leadership of T. W. Monell, county clerk, and 
an old-time farmer, the farmers of Montrose County have organized as the 
County Producers' Association, the object being to consult together as to the 
methods which will produce the best and most profitable results from farming 
the land. The organization has proved of remarkable value in stimulating 
new methods of farming and the trying of new crops. 

MONTROSE 

The metropolis of the Uncompahgre Valley is Montrose, a city now of 
about 4,000 people and rapidly growing. 

Above Montrose for ten miles the Uncompahgre Valley extends in a broad 
expanse of farms and orchards. To the east a long, steady slope rises to 
Lujane, where the Gunnison tunnel discharges the water to make the whole 
valley fertile. West of the city are the orchards of Spring Creek Mesa, cele- 
brated for their production of apples, peaches and pears for the last twenty 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



69 



years. All this region was more or less watered from the Uncompahgre River 
before the Gunnison tunnel was built, and so it is further developed now than 
any other section of the valley. 

Montrose is the county seat of Montrose County, junction of the broad 
gauge line of the Denver & Rio Grande from Grand Junction, with the nar- 
row gauge lines leading over Marshall Pass to the eastward, and to Ouray 
and the San Juan on the south. It is headquarters for the United States 
Reclamation Service and the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users' Association. 
The United States Land Office for a large district is here. The Denver & Rio 
Grande has commenced work on a beautiful new depot to cost $22,000. The 
town has many handsome buildings and beautiful residences, its streets are 
shaded and have cement sidewalks, mountain water is brought from the head- 
waters of the Cimarron, and the dooryards are filled with bearing fruit 
trees. Among the business enterprises established or under way are a flouring 
mill, canning factory, evaporator and creamery. 







fife l« 



A Field of Onions at Olathe, Colo. 

OLATHE 

Olathe, twelve miles north of Montrose, is the second town in Montrose 
County. This town is almost in the center of the Uncompahgre Valley. A 
few years ago Olathe was an alfalfa field. Today it has 600 inhabitants, fine 
business buildings, bustling stores and a $60,000 city water system. Olathe 
is the nearest railway point to three-fifths of all the land in the Uncompahgre 
Valley, and roads radiate from it in all directions. Not one-fourth of the 
irrigable and arable land about Olathe has as yet been brought under cultiva- 
tion. 

Some of the richest land in the valley is located in the bottoms of the 
Uncompahgre River near and around Olathe. Special attention is paid to 



70 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



onion growing. One tract of land produced fourteen successive crops of 
onions, and the last crop was worth more than $800 per acre. The same soil 
gives enormous yields of sugar beets, oats, wheat and other crops, and its fer- 
tility seems to be absolutely inexhaustible. Olathe usually brings back the 
long end of the prizes from the vegetable departments of all the Colorado 
state fairs. 

DELTA 

Delta and the country about it are so rich and important that they are 
given a chapter to themselves, under the heading of Delta County. Delta has 
tributary to it about 40,000 acres of the Uncompahgre Valley, and is a thriv- 
ing town of about the same size as Montrose. 

THE CEDAR CREEK COUNTRY 

A ditch brought across the top of Cerro Summit from the Cimarron has 
made fertile a considerable area of bench lands, lying above the Uncompahgre 
Valley, on the benches of Cedar Creek. About four thousand acres of these 
farms is tributary to Cedar Creek station on the Denver & Rio Grande, and a 
good deal of this has been planted into fruit trees. 

RIDGWAY— THE HORSEFLY COUNTRY 

The Uncompahgre Valley continues south above the point where the 
waters of the Gunnison reach it through the tunnel, and there are many beau- 
tiful and productive farms all the way up the valley, with opportunities for 
the landseeker in the way of well irrigated lands at low prices. 

Ridgway, between Montrose and Ouray, is the junction point of the Den- 
ver & Rio Grande and the Rio Grande Southern. About Ridgway and extend- 
ing westward along the route of the "Southern" is a magnificent semicircular 
valley, well watered, of which about ten thousand acres are in hay, grain and 
potato farms. 

Lying within two to six miles of the line of the Denver & Rio Grande 
Railroad, just over a low ridge which separates the waters of the Uncom- 
pahgre from the headwaters of a number of small streams leading into the 
San Miguel River, is what is known as the Horsefly country. This divide is 
quite well watered by rains, and a great deal of the original oakbrush, sage 
and grass land has been plowed and put into crops. The region now has 
forty-four farmers in it, in dairying, sheep and cattle, and raising crops of 
barley, wheat and potatoes. The rainfall is sufficient to raise good crops of 
grains. 

WESTERN MONTROSE COUNTY— AN UNDEVELOPED EMPIRE 

Montrose County extends westward to the Utah line, Montrose being 
near the east end. The west end lies for the most part in the valley of the 
San Miguel River, one of the principal tributaries of the Dolores. The San 
Miguel is a large stream, draining some very high mountains about Telluride. 
Flowing into it from the ranges on each side are a number of smaller streams 
whose flow, with a little reinforcement from reservoirs, may be depended 
upon for irrigation. The development of this great empire has only just been 
fairly started. More than a quarter million acres of deep, rich, red sandy 
loam, lying in long, sloping benches or in great valleys, can be placed under 
irrigation, and when watered will make fruit land not to be surpassed in the 
United States. The richness of the soil, even though there is no railway 
through this section, has tempted in a good many investors and settlers, and 
half a dozen oases of well irrigated land have been built up in the midst of 
the great stretch of sagebrush, piiions and cedars. 

The probability of a railroad into this section is strong. In the La Sal 
Mountains, just across the line in Utah, immense deposits of copper ore have 
been opened and will furnish traffic for a railway line for years to come from 
the ore already blocked out. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



7i 




Potatoes and Oats at Redvale, San Miguel Mesas 



In the foothills of the West Paradox Valley exists the largest known 
deposit of uranium and vanadium ores in the world. Uranium is the ore from 
which the wonderful radium is extracted. Vanadium, added to steel as an 
alloy, toughens and strengthens the fiber to a wonderful degree. Twenty- 
four four-horse teams are kept busy hauling the ores picked up in the drift to 
Placerville for shipment over the Rio Grande Southern, and it is predicted 
that when the main ore body is struck a mine will be opened which will give 
steady employment to hundreds of miners. 

Features of the Region 

The present railroad outlet for all this section is at Placerville, where 
the Rio Grande Southern crosses near the head of the valley, at an elevation of 
7,300 feet. From here west the fall is rapid, and the valley opens into a 
series of wide basins, with tributary streams coming in from the Uncom- 
pahgre Plateau on the north, and from the San Miguel Mountains on the 
south. 

The entire section, including the Disappointment and Cedar valleys, con- 
tains an irrigable area of about 250,000 acres. The soil is chiefly a red, 
sandy loam of great depth and surpassing fertility. It has an elevation 
ranging from 6,700 feet at the highest point down to 4,700 feet at the lowest, 
which is at the Dolores River. The valleys are adapted to all products that 
are grown on the western slope of Colorado, and especially is it a fruit 
section. Field corn is grown on an extended scale. Crops of from forty to 
fifty bushels per acre have been harvested, and the corn is of extra good 
quality. 

There is at the present time about 10,000 acres under cultivation. Irri- 
gation projects are under process of construction which will irrigate 75,000 
acres within the next three years. 

A limited amount of irrigable Government land may yet be obtained. 
Relinquishments and assignments are worth from $3 to $10 per acre. Deeded 
land is worth from $30 to $75 per acre with water rights. 



72 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 




SHmBBBHhBHHB 

A Field of Grain at Coventry, San Miguel Mesas 

The valleys are surrounded with stock range, and an abundance of mill 
timber and plenty of fuel, both coal and wood. There is plenty of post and 
fencing material close at hand. 

The water is soft and excellent for domestic purposes. In certain sec- 
tions, especially in West Paradox Valley, which is located west of the 
Dolores River, there are large springs of pure, soft w T ater which are abundant 
for all domestic uses. 

Naturita-Paradox Valley has but little alkali or adobe land. Experts 
pronounce it one of the largest bodies of good sweet land to be found in the 
state. 

The climate is mild. The precipitation is about fourteen inches. 

NORWOOD-REDLANDS 

Norwood, the pioneer town of the valley, is located about two and one-half 
miles from the head of the valley on the main road leading from Placerville, a 
railroad point, through the new town of Redlands, Naturita and on into the 
Paradox country. Immediately surrounding the town of Norwood is some 
4,000 acres of land under cultivation, irrigated from the old Naturita Canal 
and Reservoir Company, under almost a perfect system of irrigation. The 
Cone Ditch and Reservoir Company has sufficient water to irrigate from two 
to three thousand acres of land. This land is situated around Norwood and 
extends down the valley about half-way to Redlands. 

Ten and one-half miles from Norwood is the new town of Redlands, 
situated on the right bank of the Naturita Canon. Immediately around 
this town is now about 2,000 acres of land in actual cultivation, irrigated 
also from the Naturita Canal and Reservoir Company. Redlands is located 
in the center of about 40,000 acres of fertile soil, adapted to the raising of 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 73 



fruit, alfalfa and all kinds of grains. This locality is to be irrigated prin- 
cipally from the Redlands Canal Company, an irrigation corporation owned 
largely by Montrose citizens. The canal is nearing completion. This com- 
pany owns the Mammoth Reservoir, which, when completed up to its extreme 
limit, will conserve enough water to irrigate ten to fifteen thousand acres of 
land. 

Immediately across the Naturita Caflon to the west is the Lillylands 
project, which is developing water for several thousand acres. 

THE NUCLA (PINON) COLONY 

To the north and west of Redlands twelve miles is the enterprising 
little town of Xucla, the local trading point of the Colorado Co-operative 
Company, a colony of people that landed here some fifteen years ago and 
commenced to construct a ditch out of the San Miguel Canon to irrigate 
what was originally known as Tebeguache (Teb-by-wat-chee) Park. These 
energetic people, through their energy and persistence, constructed a ditch 
some twenty miles long, at a cost of $265,000, and are now irrigating some 
2,500 acres of as fine land as the state of Colorado possesses. These people 
deserve more than passing credit for their energy and grit for sticking to 
this proposition. ISTucla is a beautiful little village located on the bank of 
their irrigation canal and promises to make an important trading point in 
that part of the country. They contemplate enlarging the capacity of their 
canal in the very near future, so as to cover several thousand acres addi- 
tional land. 

WEST PARADOX VALLEY 

The furthest west of the various projects is the Paradox Valley Irriga- 
tion and Land Company, operating in West Paradox Valley. This company's 
lands lie at a low altitude and enjoy a long, warm growing season. A com- 
prehensive ditch and reservoir system has been laid out by an engineer of 
national reputation, and the land is being sold quite rapidly. It is expected 
that 4,000 acres of this land will be watered in 1912, and ultimately 10,000 
acres will be under cultivation. This amount of land, lying compactly, will 
make a settlement large enough so that the people will have the benefit of 
most of the advantages of civilization, while they wait for a railroad line to 
reach them. 

Extensive surveys have been made and work begun on a project to 
water in all 70,000 acres of land in the west end of Montrose County. Plats 
have been filed for the San Miguel Canal, the water for which is to be taken 
out of the San Miguel River, at a point about six miles below Placerville, 
and carried alono; on the walls of the carlon in a flume for a distance of 




Land Awaiting the Husbandman in the Paradox Valley 



74 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



about sixteen miles, and then through about 9,000 feet of tunnels to the 
head of the great Naturita Basin. 

The San Miguel River water will be supplemented by a supply canal 
taking water from Elk, Fall, Specie, Saltado, Beaver, Cone, Naturita and 
other creeks, and also by an extensive system of storage reservoirs. 

The total length of canals and main laterals will be considerably over 100 
miles, and the proposed works will cost in the neighborhood of JpZ,000,000. 



Chapter XII. 



DELTA COUNTY— DELTA AND VICINITY— THE NORTH FORK COUN- 
TRY—SURFACE CREEK MESA— CEDAREDGE— HOTCHKISS— 
PAONIA— PAYNE MESA— CRAWFORD— MAHER 

IN the summer of 1911 the Chamber of Commerce of Delta, Colorado, posted 
the sum of $100 in a challenge to any county in the country to equal it in 

carload fruit shipments. This challenge was widely discussed, but never 
accepted, and Delta County, Colorado, now claims to be the champion fruit 
growing county of the United States. 

Delta, the town from which the county takes its name, stands at the junc- 
tion or delta of two big valleys — the Uncompahgre and the Gunnison. It has 
nearly as much of the land of the Uncompahgre Valley tributary to it as any 
of the towns in that valley. Across the Gunnison Valley to the north is the 
enormous Surface Creek Mesa, with many thousand acres of fruit lands, well 
watered. Right back of the town, the fine residences border upon the bending 
orchards of Garnet Mesa. Across the river is California Mesa, with 16,000 
acres of good fruit land. To the eastward, up the North Fork of the Gunni- 
son, is a fruit district which often ships seventy cars in a single day, com- 
prising the districts of Paonia and Hotchkiss. Every year sees more new 
orchards planted, and every year sees more orchards coming into bearing, so 
that if Delta is now the champion county of the country, the chances are that 
supremacy will be maintained for a long time to come. 

DELTA 

Delta had in 1890 a population of 500. Its last school census indicated a 
total population of close to 4,000 people. The county in the same time has 
grown from a population of 2,500 to 15,000. The townsite covers an area of 
700 acres, and streets are regularly laid out 75 to 100 feet in width. The 
shade trees and lawns are a notable feature. The town owns a gravity system 
of water works costing 100,000, bringing water from the Grand Mesa, fifteen 
miles away, and from an altitude of 9,400 feet, insuring for all time a bounti- 




In the Great Orchard District of Delta 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



75 



ful supply of spring water. The town has a separate sewer system. There 
are six churches, and all the fraternal and benevolent organizations are well 
represented, with their feminine attachments of lodges, circles, bands, guilds, 
etc., banks, mercantile establishments of all kinds, lumber yards and planing 
mills, factories, foundry, steam laundry, canning factory, flour mill, and brick 
and tile works with a capacity of 20,000 pressed brick per day. 

Garnet Mesa, lying directly back of the city, has an area of 6,000 acres. 
The lower part of this mesa is reached by a ditch directly from the Gunnison 
River, and has been developed into beautiful orchards, with many handsome 
homes. This orchard section is so close to Montrose that many of the business 
men of the town live here, owning and operating their own orchards, and 
being almost within walking distance of their other places of business. The 
higher levels of this mesa are now under water from the Gunnison tunnel, 
and settlement and development will proceed very fast. 

The Gunnison River, which flows just north of Delta, has a wide stretch of 
bottom lands, on which a considerable gardening industry is located. The 
settlement of North Delta is composed almost wholly of two and one-half, 
five and ten acre hol'dings. This land produces very large crops of sugar 
beets, cantaloupes, strawberries, tomatoes and vine crops. 

Directly across the river from Delta is California Mesa, a portion of the 
Uncoinpahgre Valley, covering 16,000 acres. Some of this land, which is red 
soil of extra good quality, had been watered from the Uncompahgre before 
the boring of the tunnel, and has fine orchards upon it. The balance is now 
under rapid settlement and development. , 




Orchards in the Surface Creek Valley 



THE SURFACE CREEK COUNTRY 

Grand Mesa is an enormous bulk of mountain, lying between the valleys 
of the Grand and the Gunnison, rising to a level of 9,000 feet at the top, 
which is an undulating level, covered with forests, with lakes in the valleys, 
and great forests of pine, spruce and aspen trees. This great mass of Land is 
said to be in bulk the largest mountain in the United States, covering more 
than 600 square miles. 

The south side of Grand Mesa after a sudden descent from the top, slopes 
off to the Gunnison River in a long succession of gentle slopes, terminating at 
the river with an abrupt bluff. Perched on this great shelf of rich soil, 



76 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 
















































".,'.", '^v- ■•.-■■;' " ■■.•.:. 






^:||P|S 


»*%;=*::;■ 












.. 




. 



















A Portion of the Cedaredge District, showing Young Orchards 

watered from the lakes and streams of Grand Mesa, and commanding a wide 
view of valleys below, is the Surface Creek Mesa, whose whole area is rapidly 
becoming covered with orchards of apples, pears, and peaches. Surface Creek's 
claim to being the most beautiful of the orchard sections of Colorado has never 
been disputed, but besides its aesthetic claims, its orchards are as productive 
as any in Colorado. In one year — 1908 — this section doubled in population, and 
the annual growth since has been very rapid. More than 7,000 acres is now 
out in young orchards, while about 2,500 acres is already in bearing. This 
mesa is in plain sight of Delta, to the north and east, and is given transporta- 
tion facilities by the North Fork branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Rail- 
road, which runs just at the foot of the last descent. 

A trip up the North Fork branch in the fruit shipping season is full of 
surprises. Only occasional glimpses of the orchards on the benches above can 
be seen from the car windows. There is a comparatively small area of fruit 
lands on the level of the railroad, but every few miles will be found a ship- 
ping station, with long lines of wagons piled high with boxes, waiting to load 
cars, and where the fruit comes from is often a mystery to travelers, who do 
not realize the extent of country on the hill above them. 

The shipping point for a large area is the town of Austin, which has 
a box factory, a canning factory, a fruit growers' association and a full com- 
plement of mercantile establishments. 

On the southern brow of the Surface Creek Mesa, extending along the 
Gunnison River, lies the little settlement of Cory, six miles from Delta. A 
stage delivers mail every afternoon and the general stores provide the resi- 
dents around about with the conveniences of home trading. 

Twelve miles northeast of Delta, and near the center of the Surface 
Creek Mesa, is Eckert. The center of a large region, it is an important point 
en route from the county seat to the upper Surface Creek district. The 
daily stage touches Eckert. The town has several stores and a hall, church, 
excellent schools, etc. Many old orchards are in the immediate vicinity of 
Eckert. 

Cedaredge, the largest of the five towns in the Surface Creek district, lies 
ten miles from the railroad and has an altitude of 5,700 feet. Ten miles to 
the north of Cedaredge are some two hundred-odd lakes, which supply the 
mesa with the finest of mountain water, free from alkali, for irrigation and 
domestic purposes. Cedaredge is incorporated, has two churches, a bank, 
newspaper, hotel, livery, drug, hardware, dry goods, clothing and three grocery 
stores, high school, the popular lodges, no saloons and no alkali. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



77 



The North Fork branch of the railroad climbs away from the river and 
up the slopes, until it comes out almost on the level of Payne's Mesa, also 
known as Redlands, lying just east of the Surface Creek Mesa. This region is 
reached by a ditch from the North Fork of the Gunnison, and although water 
has been there only a few years, it is already keeping several small shipping 
stations busy. Large crops of alfalfa, sugar beets and potatoes are inter- 
spersed with the young orchards. Near this mesa, the Gunnison River swings 
off to the south into the impenetrable Black Caiion, and the tracks follow up 
the North Fork, climbing high on the side of the hill until Hotchkiss is 
reached, twenty-live miles from Delta. Here begins the North Fork Valley, 
famous wherever Colorado fruit is known. 

THE NORTH FORK VALLEY 

In a sort of "blind pocket" surrounded on every side by high mountains 
which cut off severe storms, but which are none of them high enough to seri- 
ously chill the air, the North Fork Valley enjoys a mildness of climate out of 
proportion to its altitude. The seasons are long, and when spring comes, it 
comes to stay, so that the losses by spring frosts in this region have never 
been heavy. 

About Hotchkiss is a total area of 30,000 acres, in orchards, alfalfa, beets 
and other crops. The mesas on which this land is located rise on both sides 
from the river bottoms, in great variety of shapes and sizes. The water for 
these is derived both from the river and from the smaller streams which 
come in from the sides. New irrigation projects are being developed all the 
time, and older ones extended, so that the arable area is growing. 

Some years ago the department of pomology was established in the 
United States Agricultural Bureau, and Prof. H. S. Van Deman, one of the 
noted authorities on fruit and fruit growing, was placed in charge. Professor 
Van Deman made a tour covering every important fruit section of the country 
and upon his return to Washington embodied in his report the following 
statement : 

"In all my travels I have not seen a more profitable or delightful place 
to grow fruit than the North Fork of the Gunnison River. The fruit interest 
here is beginning to override all others, and orchards are being planted in 
every direction. The table lands, or mesas, are entirely free from alkali 
properties, and seem to be best for fruit. They are extremely well adapted 
to all kinds of deciduous fruits. The peach, apricot and all deciduous fruits 
were bearing profusely. No insect enemies were seen or heard of in this 
vicinity." 




An Orchard Home near Hotchkiss, North Fork Valley 



78 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



HOTCHKISS 

Hotchkiss was a thriving town when its sole outlet was a wagon road. 
It has a population of 1,800, and an elevation of 5,369 feet, boasts of one of 
the largest mercantile establishments on the Western Slope, two churches, 
two banks, a fine stone schoolhouse, two telephone systems, and a first class 
hotel. In the vicinity of Hotchkiss there is more than a million dollars 
invested in ditch improvements. The town is surrounded by orchards, while 
the mountain scenery is very fine. The discovery of radium springs within 
two miles of the town may add the attractions of a health resort to the other 
charms of the place. In the vicinity of Hotchkiss are large beds of workable 
bituminous coal, while a large deposit of semi-anthracite has been discovered 
but only slightly developed. 




Birdseye View of Orchards near Paonia, North Fork Valley 



PAONIA 

At Paonia, eight miles above Hotchkiss, the North Fork Valley opens out 
into an amphitheater, on whose slopes mesas rise often to a level of several 
hundred feet above the river. Every acre of these benches is going into fruit. 
Peaches at present predominate. In the peach season the town of Paonia 
simply hums with business. There are two large concerns which pack and 
ship the fruit, two fruit growers' associations, and a canning factory. At 
each one of the shipping stations long lines of wagons are waiting from morn- 
ing until evening, and cars are backed in, loaded full with crates, and hauled 
out again, at the rate of several in every hour. The Paonia peaches are of 
magnificent size and excellent quality, firm and juicy, and come into market 
when it is practically bare of peaches from other points, as Paonia is one of 
the latest peach producing points in the country. Under these circumstances, 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 79 



Paonia peaches are eagerly sought in the country from Denver to Chicago, 
and bring good prices to the growers. The cannery pays $30 per ton for 
peaches, taken just as they come from the trees, and at this rate orchards 
about Paonia have yielded more than $400 to the acre, while peaches sold in 
boxes have produced more than $850 from a single acre of trees. 

Paonia is a younger town than Hotchkiss, but has now overtaken it in 
population. The buildings, stores, churches and schools attest the high degree 
of prosperity attained by the people in the country about. 

The North Fork Valley is surrounded on every side by excellent cattle 
ranges, and live stock divides attention with fruit and farm production. 

At Somerset, where the North Fork branch now ends, are coal mines pro- 
ducing some of the best coal on the Western Slope. A large part of the hills 
surrounding the North Fork Valley is underlaid with coal. 

South of Hotchkiss and Paonia, on what is called the Smith Fork of the 
Gunnison River, are the towns of Crawford and Maher. These towns are 
based upon recently constructed canal and reservoir systems which have 
opened much good land for settlement. These sections, somewhat remote 
from the railway, offer land of first class productive quality at moderate 
prices, and their promoters point to the fact that the railway was built up 
the valley to meet the fruit production along the river, as evidence that the 
planting of orchards in the outlying sections will certainly bring the rails 
there in time. 



Chapter XIII. 



THE HIGHER VALLEYS OF THE WESTERN SLOPE— EAGLE RIVER 

VALLEY— THE ROARING FORK— THE UPPER VALLEY 

OF THE GUNNISON 

THE western side of the continental divide in Colorado gets more rain and 
snow than the eastern slope, because the bulk of the moisture drifts 
across from the Pacific Ocean and is precipitated when it strikes the 
mountains. 

Nearer the top of the range, the valleys are comparatively narrow, but 
between these narrow strips of arable land are millions upon millions of acres 
of the finest mountain grass pastures in the world. A very small farm under 
irrigation in the valley or on the lower slopes will produce alfalfa or wild hay 
enough to keep many cattle during the few months when there is too much 
snow on the ranges. The value of these little holdings, each one of them com- 
manding thousands of acres of pasture which is practically free, becomes very 
great. 

Life in these valleys has many pleasures. The climate in summer time is 
cool, bright and bracing, while the winters are generally open. The streams 
are fringed with great pines, spruces and cottonwoods, and the crystal clear 
waters that foam over the boulders are alive with trout. On the hills deer and 
elk share the pastures with the cattle and horses. The scenery is beautiful 
beyond description in printed words. The lines of the Denver & Rio Grande 
traverse practically all of these valleys, bringing the daily mail and giving 
quick outlet for cattle and produce. 

Besides the stock business, these high valleys are producing very large 
crops of potatoes, and the quality of these tubers is becoming as noted in its 
way as the quality of the peaches, pears and apples of the warmer valleys 
below. 

EAGLE RIVER VALLEY 

After crossing the continental divide, over Tennessee Pass, on the 
broad gauge main line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, the traveler 
finds himself gliding through a valley which widens with each mile, and 



So 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 




Potatoes and Grain in Eagle River Valley 

where on every side he can see evidence of the activity of new settlers and 
old. It is a peculiarity of this valley, however, that the best lands and farms 
cannot be seen from the car windows. Leaving the train at either Eagle or 
Gypsum, the homeseeker will find that he has many opportunities before him. 

The crops raised in this valley are surprising even when one has been 
reading records of irrigated land production from other parts of the state. 
Oats very often are grown that run 115 bushels to the acre, and weigh forty- 
five pounds to the bushel. Potatoes yield as high as 200 sacks (400 bushels) 
to the acre, and are of surpassing quality at that. Sugar beets yield from 
twenty to twenty-five tons to the acre, and carry a higher percentage of 
saccharine matter than those grown in lower altitudes. In the season of 1905 
beets were raised by C. Schurm which tested 24.25 per cent, sugar by Govern- 
ment analysis. 

The farming portion of the Eagle River Valley is a continuous succession 
of gypsum hills with intervening valleys. These valleys have been fertilized 
with the wash from the gypsum. When it is remembered that in the East 
farmers pay high prices for gypsum to sprinkle thinly over their lands as a 
fertilizer, the extraordinary richness of these lands will be appreciated. 



RAISING TIMOTHY 

Clear up the valley, almost to the foot of the final ridge of the conti- 
nental divide, profitable farming is carried on. One of the novel sights to 
be seen from the station of Minturn on the Denver & Rio Grande, looking 
south, is the timothy meadows, covering hundreds of acres, on the steep 
slopes of the side hills. These meadows produce three to four tons of prime 
hay every summer, and this hay sells at from $12 to $14 per ton, baled and 
on board cars at Minturn. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



81 



Besides the comparatively small area of farming lands, the Eagle River 
Valley contains 1,500,000 acres of fine grazing lands, the use of which is 
apportioned among the settlers, giving them a magnificent basis for the busi- 
ness of raising cattle and horses. 

ROARING FORK AND CRYSTAL RIVER VALLEYS 

From Glenwood Springs a branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad 
extends east and. south, terminating at Aspen, one of the greatest silver min- 
ing camps in the world. This line traverses the valley of the Roaring Fork, 
and crosses the valley of Crystal River. This region boasts of a very rich 
soil that is entirely free from alkali, and enjoys perfect climate, with no 
hailstorms. Carbondale, a town located about the center of the valley of the 
Roaring Fork and at the mouth of the Crystal River Valley, is the principal 
shipping point. Up Crystal River are the Coal Basin mines, among the 
largest coal mines in Colorado, and further up are immense deposits of the 
finest marble in the world, to which a railway line has recently been com- 
pleted. At these quarries there have been constructed marble working 
plants that give permanent employment to many hundred men, thus making 
a big home market for the farmers of the Crystal River Valley. 

Mount Sopris, one of the most perfectly formed mountain peaks in 
Colorado, rises in one sheer, unbroken ascent from the level plain of the 
Crystal River Valley, and makes a scenic background of unrivaled beauty 
for this whole rich region. But the farmers of the Roaring Fork do not live 
upon scenery; there is no valley in Colorado where general farming produces 
larger crops, or crops of better quality. Perhaps one reason for this is that 
there is no valley anywhere that has a higher class of farmers than this little 
group. The Carbondale farmers have studied the best methods, have secured 
the best seed and the best breeds of cattle, have consulted their markets and 
local conditions. Potato seed developed on their own farms and imported 
from Scotland now grows potatoes celebrated for quality from one end of the 
country to the other. Oats from Scotland produce crops of more than 100 
bushels to the acre. Red clover, raised in rotation to keep up the fertility of 




A Great Potato Field in the Roaring Fork Valley — Rows one-half mile long 



82 THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



the soil, rivals alfalfa crops elsewhere. A carload of Carbondale steers took 
the grand prize at the St. Louis World's Fair. 

The soil in this locality is generally bright red in color, a sandy loam 
with some pebbles and stones. The growing importance of farming as dis- 
tinguished from cattle raising has led to the division of a number of large 
alfalfa fields, and the Roaring Fork Valley affords valuable opportunities to 
homesfeekers. There is an unfailing and almost unlimited supply of pure 
water for irrigation, and the region is blessed, besides, with a wonderfully 
cool climate. The altitude of Carbondale is 6,181 feet. 

THE UPPER GUNNISON VALLEYS 

A region similar to the Eagle River and the Roaring Fork valleys' lies 
about the town of Gunnison, on the Marshall Pass division of the Denver & 
Rio Grande Railroad. These valleys, while narrow, comprise a great many 
square miles of land where alfalfa and wild hay, clover and timothy, small 
grains, potatoes, small fruits, cattle and sheep, chickens, and other lines of 
farming produce more than satisfactory results. 



Chapter XIV. 



THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY— GRAND JUNCTION— PALISADE— GLEN- 
WOOD— NEW CASTLE— SILT— RIFLE— GRAND VALLEY— THE 
PLATEAU CREEK REGION— DEBEQUE— ORCHARD MESA— 
FRUITA— THE ORCHARD TOWN OF LOMA 

WHEN the promoter of the fortunes of any fruit growing district any- 
where in the West wants to give the highest superlative of praise to 
the region he is "boosting" he says it is "going to be another Grand 
Valley." 

Celebrated not only all over the United States, but in Europe, and on the 
east coast of Asia, as the producer of the most delicious of fruits, the Grand 
Valley is going forward to a fame like that of the Vale of Cashmere, or the 
Rheingau of Germany. These are the elements which go to make up the 
superiority that has brought this fame: A perfect climate, warm summer 
days, cool nights, a long growing season; a short open winter, yet cold 
enough to make the fruit trees thoroughly dormant; very little wind or vio- 
lent weather; plentiful sunshine; a very deep, mellow, fertile soil; a great 
abundance of irrigating water; a moderate altitude, high enough to make fruit 
firm and juicy, low enough to give plenty of time for fruit to grow and 
mature; a position midway between the great markets for fruit; and excep- 
tionally good transportation facilities — on the main line of a transconti- 
nental railroad line, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. 

From President Taft down through a long list of lesser celebrities, 
whose journeys have taken them to all parts of the world, the verdict on the 
Grand Valley has always been the same, and is summed up by E. S. Sands 
supervising engineer of the United States Reclamation Service, in the follow- 
ing words: 

"The Grand Valley is not merely the best section of Colorado; nor is it 
simply the finest land in the United States. It is the richest soil and has 
the greatest productive power of any section in the whole world." 

The Grand is the largest river in Colorado. It rises in a sweep of the 
continental divide 100 miles long, a series of great forested amphitheaters, 
culminating in peaks above 14,000 feet. In this watershed snows fall abun- 
dantly in the winters and melt slowly through the summers, so that the Grand, 
instead of having its periods of flood and of famine, flows steadily all summer 
and all winter. The total annual flow of the river is more than 3,000,000 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



83 



acre feet of water, and there is never a stage of the river when there is not 
water enough in it to take care easily of 200,000 acres of land. The total of 
all lands irrigable from the Grand River is about 175,000 acres. The greater 
part of its journey from the mountains to the Gulf of California is in narrow 
valleys and deep canons, but in Colorado it opens out in the Grand Valley 
with about 200,000 acres of lands, some irrigable from the river and some from 
the side streams. 

The upper courses of the river are through almost every known kind of 
rock. There are cations in granite and caiions in quartzite, canons of lime- 
stone and canons of gypsum; and the soil of the mesas and valleys below is 
formed of the fine materials from all these rocks, ground and reground, 
mixed and blended into loams which contain every valuable mineral element — 




Copyright, 1909, by F. E. Dean 

Packing Colorado's Famous Apples, in the Grand River Valley 



potash and phosphorus, lime and sulphur, silica and carbon, iron and even 
gold and silver. Given a touch of water and a little nitrogen, and the mesas 
and valleys are ready to spring into a fertility which could only be approached 
in other localities by the addition of tons of chemical fertilizers to each acre 
of soil. 

Into this land of opportunity has come a population of exceptionally fine 
character. Elbert Hubbard, noted as a lecturer, traveler, observer and 
writer, has said of the Grand Valley: 

"Grand Junction, Colorado, is in the center of the GREATEST APPLE 
PRODUCING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. For a stretch of twenty miles 
the land is one laughing garden of flowers and fruit. * * * I am not at 
all sure whether Grand Junction apples are bought by eastern buyers on the 
trees at five cents each because God has smiled on that particular valley, or 
because he placed here a SUPERIOR PEOPLE. * * * My idea is that 
SUPERIOR people produce SUPERIOR apples and things, anywhere." 

The transcontinental line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, after 
crossing Tennessee Pass, threads the canons and narrow valleys of the Snake 
and Eagle rivers until it meets the Grand at the head of Glenwood Canon. 



8 4 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



Thirty- four miles below, at Glenwood Springs, the train emerges from a long 
tunnel into the head of the Grand Valley — where trees and grass and flowers 
replace the crags and precipices of the upper valleys. 

GLENWOOD SPRINGS 

Glenwood Springs is named for hot springs of a volume unequaled in 
any of the famous European spas. Their medicinal value is high, whether 
taken internally or in tub and vapor baths, and Glenwood, from the time of 
the aborigines, has enjoyed a great reputation for cures accomplished. It is 
equipped with bathhouses, cave baths, a great swimming pool of warm water 
in which bathers may swim in the open air any day in the year; and has a 
number of beautiful hotels. Surrounding Glenwood are great beds of coal, 
with several large batteries of coke ovens. In the canon a short distance 
above the town is the great power plant of the Central Colorado Power Com- 
pany, where the Shoshone Falls of Grand River have been harnessed, the 
water carried through a tunnel two miles long, dropped eighty-five feet 
through turbines, and 18,000 horsepower generated, which is sent by wire 
even as far as Denver, operating the hoists and machinery of numberless 
mines along the way. This large supply of "white coal," as electric energy 
generated by mountain streams has been called, is one of the features of the 
Grand River. Surveys have shown that there is hardly a single mile of the 
Grand River, for 150 miles, where 5,000 horsepower could not be easily and 
cheaply developed. With abundant bituminous coal, reinforced with all kinds 
of clays and minerals in the hills about, the Grand Valley towns will in time 
to come be the seats of important manufacturing enterprises. 

NEW CASTLE— SILT— IVES (ANTLERS) 

At New Castle, twelve miles below Glenwood, orchards begin to appear as 
the train reaches lower altitudes down long slopes. The soil is mostly red, 




Barn and Storage House on an Extensive Orchard in the Lower Grand Valley 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 8s 





Two-Year-Old Peach Orchard at Rifle, Grand River Valley 



and large crops of alfalfa, potatoes and sugar beets are produced. There is 
also good money made here in both small fruits and tree fruits. Silt, six 
miles below New Castle, is in the center of a wide valley. The bottom lands 
are watered from the Grand, but on each side are benches rising one above 
the other like orderly shelves, and the water is brought to these from side 
streams, such as Rifle Creek, Divide Creek, and Garfield Creek, watering a 
present total of nearly 20,000 acres of good lands directly tributary to Silt, 
on both sides of the river. By the building of reservoirs on these side streams, 
water can be stored to irrigate still higher benches, and the cultivated acreage 
may be increased to 50,000 acres. Some of the land on these mesas, when 
irrigated, is almost unbelievably rich. On the Lockhard Mesa, across the 
river from Silt, the sagebrush was cleared from a field of eighty acres and it 
was plowed and put into oats. The yield over the whole field was 108 bushels 
to the acre. Similar large yields of potatoes, sugar beets and other crops are 
attested in this locality. 

North of Silt, enclosed in a semicircle of the Hogback Range, is a series of 
red benches, about 300 feet above the track, watered by a ditch and reservoir 
system brought across from Rifle Creek, which is being extensively developed 
into orchards. Some of the finest showings of fruit made in Colorado have 
come from orchards in this locality and a new acreage of trees is being set 
out every year. 

RIFLE 

Rifle is located in the mouth of the Rifle Creek Valley, and is a thriving 
town of 2,000 people, with the greater part of its buildings of brick or stone. 
It is flanked on either side by fertile mesas, and across the Grand River is 
another wide area of very rich land. The valley of Rifle Creek itself is another 
productive area. Up Rifle Creek extends the main traveled road to Meeker and 
the valley of White River, forty miles north, a great cattle producing coun- 
try, and all the cattle are shipped from Rifle; while all the supplies for an 
area twice as large as the state of Connecticut are freighted from this point. 



86 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



The important products of the Rifle district in order of shipments are 
potatoes, sugar beets, and fruit. The subdivision of some of the old cattle 
farms, enriched by twenty years of alfalfa growing, has put a considerable 
amount of good land at moderate prices on the market at Rifle, and the 
resulting growth has been rapid. 

GRAND VALLEY— MORRISANIA 

Grand Valley, seventeen miles below Rifle, is the center of another wide 
expanse of farming lands. On the south side of the river, extending for fif- 
teen miles east and west and two miles wide, is Battlement Mesa, a plateau 
about 200 feet above the river, while over it towers again the great bulk of 
Grand Mesa. From the sides of this Grand Mesa flow a number of small 
streams, and with the aid of reservoirs, a very good water supply has been 
provided for the whole area, and it is now dotted with farmhouses, making 
one of the most beautiful views in the West. In a depression of this mesa, 




An Orchard at Morrisania in the Grand River Valley 



where it has unusual protection from storms, is what is known as Morrisania 
Ranch. Here is about 600 acres of very rich, deep, red lands, of which about 
180 acres is in bearing orchards. This has recently been purchased by skilful 
Missouri nurserymen, and has been subdivided into small tracts for develop- 
ment into orchards. The whole area is being personally conducted into per- 
fect condition, and with every requirement in soil, climate and irrigation, 
it is expected that Morrisania will become one of the show places of the 
country. 

On the north side of the river the Willcox Canal, constructed twenty 
years ago, is being enlarged, rebuilt and extended, and will put under cultiva- 
tion about 12,000 acres of land, none of it more than a quarter of a mile from 
the Denver & Rio Grande tracks. 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



87 



DEBEQUE— THE PLATEAU VALLEY— COLLBRAN 

Debeque is a growing town, with three valleys contributing to its pros- 
perity. Roan Creek Valley here meets the Grand River, and for many miles 
up the stream there are prosperous cattle ranches and general farming home- 
steads. Directly north and west of Debeque the valley widens out into a 
level plain covering several hundred acres, most of which is being farmed in 
fruit in ten- acre holdings. 

Across the river from Debeque the hills fall back in a wide arc, leaving 
space for the Bonita Valley — about 3,000 acres watered by a gravity ditch 
from the Grand River. About one- third of this valley is now cultivated, but 
the balance of the land is being rapidly taken up and a large acreage of grain, 
beets and potatoes will be grown there in 1912. 

The Plateau Valley lies over a small divide from Debeque. It is the val- 
ley of Plateau Creek, which flows into the Grand in the canon fifteen miles 
below Debeque. The Plateau Valley comprises an area of nearly 20,000 acres, 
lying on long slopes and terraces nearly to the tops of the mountains. On the 
lower benches and in the canon of Plateau Creek are orchards whose thrift 
and the quality of whose fruits cannot be surpassed anywhere. Recent irri- 
gation developments have added a good deal of fine land to the fruit area of 
the Plateau Valley. At present these lands are from seventeen to twenty-four 
miles from the railroad, but surveys have been made for a railway line into 
the Plateau Valley, and the owners of land there are confident that its rapid 
development will bring the rails before many years. Above the fruit area in 
the Plateau Valley the hay, grain and cattle farms extend upward clear to 
the aspens on the edge of Grand Mesa. The climate is exceptionally delightful, 
while the region borders the Battlement Forest Reserve, with its opportunities 
for hunting, fishing and camping. 

Just below Debeque is a detached mesa of very red soil crossed by the 
railway. This is called Virginia Mesa. A steam pumping plant is now lifting 
water from the river, and quite a settlement of houses and small farms has 
sprung up. It is the plan of the promoter of the enterprise ultimately to 
replace the steam plant with a gravity ditch, and to have at least 3,000 acres 
of very fine land solidly into fruit — for which it seems especially adapted. 

PALISADE 

From Debeque, the railroad drops into a very rugged, barren sandstone 
canon, with barely room for both the train and the river. There are occa- 




ii*7..\.J. 

In the Plateau Valley 



88 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



sional patches of orchards where some bend or alcove has been utilized, but 
there is little to prepare the traveler for the scene that meets his eyes when 
he suddenly emerges from the canon into Palisade. Here the great cliffs sud- 
denly bend away to the north and south, and the great Grand Valley opens, 
150,000 acres of the finest land in the world. Palisade comprises an area of 
about 6,000 acres, lying on both sides of the river in a triangle with the apex 
at the mouth of the canon. The cliffs rise almost vertically for 1,800 feet, and 
the area thus enclosed has shown a remarkable record for freedom from frosts, 
having at the same time the longest growing season in Colorado. 

Peaches — Elberta peaches — are the basis of fruit farming at Palisade. 
For mile after mile the orchards run, all perfectly trimmed and perfectly 
tended. In April the landscape is one riot of peachbloom, pink and red and 
white. In August and September the trees bend with the most perfect, the 
most luscious and the best shipping fruit produced in America. Records of 
nearly $1,000 net profits from a single acre of peaches have been made at 
Palisade; cherries have paid $1,200 an acre; pears $1,000 an acre. Nearly all 
the land at Palisade is served by two ditches which pump water from the 
Grand River, using the power of the river itself to run the pumps. Land 
sells ordinarily at from $500 per acre for land without any trees on it, to 
$1,200 to $2,000 for bearing orchards, and many pieces of exceptionally good 
orchards, close in, have sold for as high at $4,000 per acre. 

All the land about Palisade is in small holdings, and the farmers live as 
though in town, with mountain water piped into their houses, electric lights, 
sprinkled streets, cement sidewalks running miles into the country and all 
the other modern appointments. 

ORCHARD MESA 

Starting across the river from Palisade and extending twelve miles to 
Grand Junction is a mesa about 200 feet above the river, whose rich red soil 
has been a continual temptation to irrigation promoters to get water upon it. 




Sprinkling Roads in the Palisade Orchard District 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



89 




Clifton, in the Grand River Valley, is Famous for its Cantaloups. 

between Trees, as Shown here 



They may be Grown 



A few years ago it was incorporated as an irrigation district, and at a cost 
of a million and a quarter dollars an irrigating system has been completed. 
A ditch with miles of redwood flumes has been built eight miles up Hogback 
Cailon, and brings a large stream of water down to a point opposite Palisade, 
where the flow is sent back through turbines to the river and the energy 
generated pumps a sufficient amount of water 210 feet up on the mesa to 
irrigate 12,000 acres of land. 

A very good start has been made in the settlement and development of 
Orchard Mesa, and most of it will go into fruit trees in the course of the 
next few years. In 1912 about one-third the area will be cultivated in sugar 
beets, potatoes, cantaloupes and other crops as a preparation for tree planting. 

CLIFTON 

Clifton, six miles west of Palisade, is practically an extension of that 
famous district. It is only a short time since there was not even a railway 
station at Clifton, but since the orchards in that locality have come into 
bearing age the town has grown rapidly. A large part of Orchard Mesa will 
be tributary commercially to Clifton. This town, like Palisade, is solidly 
surrounded by orchards. 

GRAND JUNCTION 

The first Colorado irrigated fruit to achieve fame came from Grand 
Junction, where fruit trees were planted in the footsteps of the departing 
Utes, in the early eighties. There are still a good many localities where all 
western Colorado fruit is known as "Grand Junction" fruit. 

Grand Junction is the largest town between Salt Lake City and Pueblo. 
It is situated at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison rivers, and the two 
main lines of the Denver & Rio Grande across Colorado meet here, with their 



90 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



division headquarters, shops and switchyards. The first sugar factory built 
in Colorado is at Grand Junction, and there are few factories in the state 
more uniformly successful. 

The town, with its immediate environs, has a population of about 8,000 
people, having increased from 3,800 in the last five years. Growth is still 
going on very fast. Grand Junction has paved streets, steel constructed office 
buildings, banks, a $75,000 Y. M. C. A., one of the largest Denver & Rio 
Grande stations in Colorado, and is a thriving, bustling, growing city. Grand 
Junction and all the surrounding cities and towns are "dry," the saloons 
having been banished by popular vote. 

The foundation upon which the growth and prosperity of Grand Junction 
rests is fruit. The town itself is on low ground next the river, but on every 
rise in every direction are the orchards. North of the town is the celebrated 
Fruit Ridge district, a series of red sandy ridges, where are the finest and 
most successful apple and pear orchards in the country. The Grand Valley 
ships every year more fruit than some of the states that axe considered fruit 
producers. There have been 100 cars a day loaded and shipped, and the ship- 







A Pear Orchard near Grand Junction 



ping season of twenty or thirty cars a day runs from August to March. 
The apples go to every part of the country. Twenty cars, in 1911, were 
bought to go to Galveston and thence by steamer to Buenos Ayres, South 
America, and the man who bought them declared that nowhere else in the 
United States could they grow apples that could be shipped by steamer 
across the tropics and arrive in perfect shape. 

Directly about Grand Junction is 25,000 acres of land in fruit or suitable 
for fruit growing, with about 8,000 acres in full-bearing orchards. 

THE GOVERNMENT PROJECT 

After some years of delay, due in part to difficulties over right of way, 
the Reclamation Service is about to begin the construction of a canal which 
will add some 44,000 acres of land to the farming area of the Grand Valley. 
The canal will be taken from the river nine miles above Palisade, and will 
make its way out by tunneling through the sandstone walls of the carion. 
The land to be irrigated is in a strip from one to three miles wide and about 
thirty miles long, lying above present irrigation and reaching almost into 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 91 



Utah. About half of the land to be irrigated is of the finest fruit quality, and 
the balance will make excellent land for beets, alfalfa or general farming. 
This land, when watered, will be thrown open for settlement. There is a con- 
siderable area of land privately owned under this ditch which will receive its 
benefits, and, with work about to start, the value of this land is rising very 
fast. 

REDLANDS 

West of Grand Junction is a bench of about 8,000 acres of land, about 200 
feet above the river, which is known as Redlands. This was successfully irri- 
gated some years ago by a pumping plant from the Gunnison River, but liti- 
gation over land patents has held back settlement. Titles are now perfect, 
and rapid settlement is in order. This land is very red, very deep and well 
drained, and it is thought will hold orchards equal to the very best now in 
the valley. 

FRUITA 

Below Grand Junction, the valley widens, running north from the river m 
a long gradual slope. The soil in this end of the valley is in places somewhat 
heavier than at Palisade, but it has been found to be even more favorable to 
apple and pear production, while the crops of alfalfa, sugar beets and grain 
it can raise make it very valuable independent of fruit raising. This whole 
region is traversed by an interurban electric line from Grand Junction. The 
higher slopes are already well covered with orchards, and the planted area is 
growing rapidly. 

Fruita prides itself on its general farming. There is hardly a farm that 
has not its well tended orchard, but the farmers also have room for hay and 
grain, hogs and sugar beets, potatoes and melons, and tomatoes. There is a 
canning factory at Fruita, and it is a well built, prosperous town of 1,200 
people, with many handsome business buildings, and with beautiful homes 
running out into the country for more than a mile, where the business men 
live, combining the profits and pleasures of an orchard with a suburban resi- 
dence. Fruita has a fine city water system, bringing water from the top of 
Pinon Mesa, south of the Grand River. 

THE ORCHARD TOWN OF LOMA 

An experiment in community building which has been closely watched in 
Colorado is the Orchard Town of Loma, six miles west of Fruita. At this 
point the railroad has to leave the river, which plunges into an inaccessible 
canon, and go up the hill, so that Loma has the advantage of being on a side 
hill, and at the same time right on the tracks. 

There is about 6,000 acres of very good soil at Loma, and most of this 
belonged to two Colorado syndicates, closely allied, among the most wealthy 
and most successful land operators in the West. Nearly this whole area has 
been platted, like a town, into ten- acre tracts, four of them in a block, so 
that each ten has a lane on each side. These tracts are being sold on easy 
terms to settlers from all parts of the country. The company provides an 
orchard expert, whose province it is to see that each tract is planted right, 
and cared for right. Extensive investigations of market conditions for apples 
led to the recommendation that each owner of a tract limit 90 per cent, of his 
planting to Jonathan, Winesap, Gano, Rome Beauty and White Winter Pear- 
main apples, Bartlett, Kieffer and Anjou pears, and when the Loma orchards 
come into bearing it will be possible to ship from Loma a carload or a train- 
load or a shipload of apples, of which every apple in every box will be the 
same variety and the same grade. 

Every inducement has been offered the buyers of Loma tracts to come 
and live there. A $12,000 brick schoolhouse offers the same grades up to the 
tenth, under highly certified teachers, that are offered in any city or town. 



92 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF COLORADO 



A canning factory, the largest and best equipped on the Western Slope, has 
been built to make a market for inter-row crops of beans, tomatoes and 
pumpkins. There are two stores, two churches, and a large number of houses, 
ranging in value from $500 to $5,000, and in architectural pretensions from a 
"shack" to a "bungalow." 

Experiments having shown that the Grand Valley was the best place in 
the country for egg and chicken production, with extraordinarily good mar- 
kets in all directions, work was begun on developing the chicken industry at 
Loma. A poultry expert of national reputation has been engaged, and with 
model henhouses going up on every ten-acre farm, and with selected flocks of 
hens being built up, it is predicted that the hen population of Loma inside two 
years will be half a million, with an annual production of eggs returning 



-^IffW 




An Industrial Development in the Orchard Town of Loma 



more than a million dollars to the growers. For the development of the mar- 
kets, the Grand Valley Egg Exchange has been organized, covering the entire 
Grand Valley, as the development of the poultry business in connection with 
fruit growing has made tremendous advances all over the valley. 

The promoters of Loma have made no pretentions of anything but making 
a profit by cold business methods, but the experiment of "personally conduct- 
ing" a community to prosperity has shown itself to be an entire success. 

Three miles west of Loma, at Mack, a branch railroad penetrates the 
Book Cliffs and reaches extensive gilsonite and asphaltum deposits in Utah, 
besides giving an entrance to the Uintah country, a very beautiful undevel- 
oped section of Utah. Mack now is very sparsely watered, but, when the Gov- 
ernment canal is built, will be the center of about 18,000 acres of splendid 
land. 



THE VALLEYS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO 



93 



Chapter XV. 



DOWN THE SANTA FE BRANCH 

THE creation of a new state from the territory of New Mexico has 
attracted new interest to the many opportunities in its wide and diverse 
area. An immediate result promises to be the regeneration of the valley 
of the Rio Grande del Norte all the way down from Colorado to Santa Fe. 

The San Luis Valley proper extends only about ten miles into New 
Mexico below the Colorado line, but along the Rio Grande Valley all the way 
down there is a succession of beautiful smaller valleys which are being rapidly 
transformed by new capital and enterprise into American farming communi- 
ties. 

From Antonito a branch of the Denver & Rio Grande extends south to 
Santa Fe, the ancient capital of the West and one of the oldest cities on the 
American continent. The railway, starting about thirty miles west of the 
valley of the Rio Grande, which at this point flows in a very deep cailon, 
finally joins the stream and follows along its banks, until it climbs the hill 
into Santa Fe, which is on a tributary stream. 

More than 40,000 people now live in this section, and 400,000 more can be 
brought in without crowding. Most of the present population is Mexican or 
Indian, but all through their farms are scattered the holdings of more enter- 
prising Americans who have realized the possibilities of the region, have 
established farms and planted orchards, and are now making enormous profits 
out of their foresight. This region is said by experts to produce the most 
perfect, grapes of any section of the United States, exceeding in quality even 
the product of the famous vineyards of California, and equaling those vineries 
in yield. Peaches, plums, apricots, pears and apples yield abundantly and 
failures are absolutely unknown. The sugar beets of the Santa Fe Valley 
experts have declared after analysis the richest in sugar contents and purest 
raised anywhere. 




An Orchard in the Espafiola Valley, New Mexico 



94 THE VALLEYS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO 



HOT SPRINGS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

Along this line there are a number of famous hot springs. At Wamsley's 
and at Ojo Caliente, reached from stations on the Denver & Rio Grande road, 
there are hotels and bathing facilities. Some of the well attested cures from 
these springs are almost miraculous. There are other springs, as yet undevel- 
oped, one group near Taos Pueblo and the other up the Pueblo River. From 
this line only are accessible the cave and cliff dwellings of the Pajarito 
Park, thirty-five miles west of Santa Fe. Here, amid settings of wonderful 
scenery, are 20,000 caves, formerly occupied by a prehistoric people, with 
thousands of communal buildings, some of more than 1,200 rooms, now in 
ruins. 

TAOS VALLEY 

The Taos Valley, reached from Embudo, Servilleta and Tres Piedras on 
the Denver & Rio Grande, was at one time called the granary of New Mexico, 
and is one of the most beautiful agricultural valleys in the world. Only about 
one-half of the irrigable land in this valley is now under water, though there 
is a surplus in the streams. Many American settlers have been coming of late 
into Taos County and several large irrigation enterprises are planned or under 
way. Red River, La Belle, Copper Hill and other mining camps are in this 
county. There is good trout fishing as well as big-game hunting. The pueblo 
of Taos consists of two communal pyramids from five to seven stories high 
and most picturesquely situated. Considerable merchant timber is to be 
found in the county. 

ESPANOLA VALLEY 

The Espanola Valley is another of the ancient settlements into which 
new blood is about to flow. Rich with orchards and vineyards, dotted with 
the spires of churches, it has enjoyed an unbroken prosperity for centuries. 
From Espanola to where it reaches Santa Fe, the Rio Grande Railroad trav- 
erses a country already partly developed, and which is capable of very much 
greater productiveness. The La Joya Reclamation project, now under way, 
will reclaim the bench lands on the east side of the Rio Grande all the way 
from Embudo to Santa Cruz, the ditches covering some of the most fertile 
lands in the entire Southwest. 

SANTA FE 

At Santa Fe, which has been called the Rome of America, are crowded 
many points of historical interest, the new and the old together, the new 
capitol of the territory of New Mexico almost touching the old church, more 
than 300 years old, in which worship has never ceased from the time its first 
mud walls were raised, partly to shelter the sacred images of the Catholic 
faith and partly to afford fortress-like protection to the people of the little 
frontier settlement of which this was the citadel. On every side of Santa Fe 
are the old settlements, and on every side the enterprising newcomer sees 
where new ditches can be built, where reservoirs can be constructed, and where 
the land, already productive, can be made to yield four and five fold. The 
city is an educational center, has a splendid public school system, and is a 
beautiful climatic and health resort. In southern Santa Fe County successful 
dry or scientific farming is being carried on. The county has many mining 
camps. 

SAN JUAN COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 

The rich red mesas of southwestern Colorado extend southward along the 
San Juan River and its various tributaries, reaching lower altitudes as they 
go further south. In this region, soil and climate and an abundance of water 
combine in producing ideal fruit growing conditions. A branch of the Denver 
& Rio Grande Railroad runs south along the Animas River to its junction 
with the San Juan River at Farmington, New Mexico, and since the comple- 



THE VALLEYS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO 



95 




Some of the Orchards near Aztec, New Mexico 

tion of this line the advancement and development of the region has been 
very rapid. 

At Aztec, New Mexico, the first large town south of Durango, the signifi- 
cance of the full Spanish name of the river — Rio de las Animas Perdidas 
(River of Lost Souls) — becomes apparent, for here, in the center of the valley, 
are the ruins of an ancient pueblo or city which must have housed a thousand 
people. Here also are the traces of big irrigation canals, through which the 
last flow of water came not less than a thousand years ago. The early Span- 
ish explorers, who named the river, undoubtedly used the word "animas" as 
referring to peoples or races. This explanation of the fantastic name is now 
generally accepted instead of the former theory that the Spaniards thought 
the roaring of the river in the caiions above sounded like the clamor of the 
inferno. 

There are now several white settlers for every one of the forgotten 
Aztecs, and the valley through every foot gives evidence in prosperous 
orchards and farms that American enterprise is here seconded by most favor- 
able conditions. 

Careful surveys have shown at least 250,000 acres of rich mesa and bench 
lands in this region which it is easily practicable to irrigate, and the water is 
in the streams for this purpose. There are at present under construction or 
partly completed the Orchard ditch, taking water from the Animas River for 
12,000 acres of land; the Bloomfield ditch, taking water from the San Juan 
for 8,000 acres; the Hammond ditch, taking water from the San Juan for 
7,500 acres, and the Illinois ditch, taking water from the Animas for 5,000 
acres. The Aztec ditch, taking water from the Animas, is being enlarged and 
extended to cover about 7,000 acres. Most of these ditches have been built 
under the Irrigation District law, by which the cost of building is placed in 
twenty-year bonds, giving the new settler ample time to get his land in 
productive shape before he has to begin paying anything on the principal of 
the value of his water rights. 



FARMINGTON 

Farmington, the present terminus of the line, is a thoroughly modern 
American city. A careful canvass of Farmington a short time ago revealed 
the fact that there was not one single actual resident or settler in Farming- 
ton or the vicinity who had either Indian or Mexican blood. Where the San 
Juan and Animas rivers come together at Farmington, there is a long tongue 
of high ground known as the Peninsula. This has a rich, deep sandy alluvial 
soil and very good drainage, and the orchards and farms are among the show 
places of New Mexico. One of the pioneer residents, George Allen, has a 
demonstration farm on which he shows remarkable success every year with 



9 6 



THE VALLEYS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO 




A Garden and Orchard near Farmington, New Mexico 

all kinds of fruits and vegetables — peaches, pears, apples, grapes, melons, 
tomatoes and peppers — -for which there is a ready market in Durango and the 
mining towns up the river. 

The town of Farmington merges immediately into orchards, rising in a 
long slope up the hill north of the town. Here every year hundreds more 
peach, apple and pear orchards are set out. 

It is claimed for the Farmington- Aztec section that it sells more land 
with less noise than any other section of the West. In the early days a good 
many people from Texas, Oklahoma and other southern points moved into 
San Juan County and soon found that, besides being a good place to make 
money, it was a very pleasant place in which to live. They have been sending 
word back to their old friends and acquaintances, and these when they came 
sent back word to others, so that by a sort of endless chain process the coun- 
try is being settled with a very fine class of people. Of course, the same 




'Jm 



.,■'.•->»..■; 




A San Juan County Vineyard, near Farmington, New Mexico 



THE VALLEYS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO 97 



conditions which produce good apples and pears, peaches and grapes, produce 
bountiful crops of alfalfa, corn, sugar beets, melons and other general farming 
crops. There is a large cattle and sheep interest, using the grazing grounds 
on the hills and higher mesas. This region also has considerable mineral 
wealth, very little developed, and prospecting for oil has brought out very 
good indications. 

The tendency in the whole region is toward concentration — ten or twenty 
acres to a family, and that well farmed. Prices of land range from $300 per 
acre for good fruit land close in to Farmington or Aztec down to $75 for good 
fruit land on mesas seven or eight miles out, and to $50 for good general 
farming land. 

FRUITLAND 

Ten miles west of Farmington, reached by daily automobile stage, is the 
settlement and town of Fruitland. The valley of the San Juan here widens 
to admit the irrigation of 16,000 acres of fine land, and projected canals will 
add 25,000 more acres to the cultivated areas. Fruitland has a flouring mill, 
stores, good schools and other enterprises. 

SHIPROCK 

The west end of San Juan County is occupied by the Navajo Indian 
Reservation, with headquarters at Shiprock, twenty-five miles west of 
Farmington. The Navajo Indians are the most progressive and most indus- 
trious of all Indian tribes, and their presence is considered one of the most 
valuable assets of the San Juan Basin. They are willing laborers, and when 
the sugar beet industry is introduced in these many fertile valleys, which is 
certain to come very soon, the Navajo Indians will afford the necessary hand 
labor, the securing of which in many localities is a big problem. 

The Navajos now do a large part of the work of clearing land, building 
ditches, etc., over the whole San Juan Basin. 

The Shiprock Agency and Indian School is devoted to teaching the Indians 
to make the best use of their lands and opportunities. The region boasts the 
best roads in the West. The annual fair is one of the events of southwestern 
Colorado and northern New Mexico, and the exhibits of all kinds of 
fruit, vegetables, grain and live stock produced by these Indians generally 
goes ahead of what is done by the whites. The Shiprock Agency is one of 
the show places of the San Juan, and few visitors fail to take the trip there, 
and marvel at the achievements of the Indians under careful teaching. 




Compound Interest Producers 



Facts of Interest to Farmers Seeking 
Homes in Colorado 



The area of the state of Colorado is 103,948 square miles 

The area of the arable land is, approximately 35,000 square miles 

The area of Colorado is 66,526,720 acres 

The area of arable lands is, approximately 22,400,000 acres 

The area of lands which can be placed under irrigation is 6,000,000 acres 

The area of lands irrigated and in actual cultivation is 3,000,000 acres 

Of public lands there have been granted to the state for the 

support of common schools 3,715,555 acres 

For the use and support of the Agricultural College 90,000 acres 

For the use and support of public and state buildings 64,000 acres 

For the use and support of the State University 46,080 acres 

Public domain open to homestead, desert and mineral entry 

in Colorado : 20,711,147 acres 

National Forests (homestead and mineral entries permitted), 

net area 13,381,055 acres 

State school lands for sale or lease 3,359,098 acres 

Land in farms 13,532,113 acres 

Improved land in farms 4,302,101 acres 

Average number of acres per farm 293 acres 

Total value of Colorado farm property $491,471,806 

Average value of land per acre 26.81 

Average value of all property per farm 10,645 

The estimated value of the farm products of the state for 1911 

aggregated $ 89,858,000 

Enumerated as follows: 

Hay, grain, potatoes, etc 34,876,996 

Dairy 6,114,317 

Fruits, vegetables and garden truck 15,063,835 

Wool 1,113,076 

Live stock (increase) 24,335,061 

Poultry, eggs, honey, etc 2,992,545 

Sugar beets 5,362,080 

Irrigation main canals, ditches already constructed 22,720 miles 

Irrigation ditches, laterals already constructed 5,202 miles 

Cost of ditches already constructed $ 55,477,350 

Average annual cost of water per acre to the farmer 75 cents 



Value of manufactures, 1011 $130,044,000 

Metal output for 1911 34,148,099 

Annual wages of all factory employes 25,560,000 

Number of railroads — 34 steam, 6 electric 40 

Miles of railroad track, main lines 7,500 

Annual wages of railroad employes $ 14,618,393 

Gold output of Colorado for 1911 19,068,760 

Silver output of Colorado for 1911 4,029,053 

Lead output for 1911 3,001,943 

Copper output for 1911 1,092,919 

Zinc, 1911 5,955,424 

Tungsten and vanadium, 1911 1,000,000 

Up to Dec. 31, 1911, Colorado's mines have produced as follows: 

Gold $506,560,748 

Silver 428,570,522 

Lead 148,668,197 

Copper 28,257,001 

Zinc 38,976,033 

Number of men employed in mining, smelting and reduction of all 

kinds of metals 9,000 

Annual wages paid for labor in mining, smelting and reduction of 

all kinds of metals $ 8,000,000 

Coal area of the state (U. S. Geological Survey) 10,130 square miles 

Actual coal output, 1911 10,075,861 tons 

Coke output during 1911 946,284 tons 

Value of iron and steel output for 1911 $13,000,000 

Number of men employed in coal mines 13,813 

Population of state, 1910 799,024 

The mean temperature at elevations between 4,000 and 6,000 feet is the 
same as that in Maryland, Virginia, Northern Spain, Southern France, 
Northern Italy, Southern Turkey in Europe, Greece, Northern Japan and 
Central California on the coast. 

The greatest need of the state of Colorado is population. 

It has been estimated by competent authorities that the state of Colorado 
can well sustain a population of 5,000,000 people. 




A "Drop" on the Great Gunnison Tunnel Project 
The U. S. Reclamation Service has spent nearly nine million dollars on this 

Irrigation Enterprise 
It will water 150,000 acres of Arid Land in the Uncompahgre Valley 





M 



Getting a Home in Colorado Page 

How to Seek a Good Location 5 

Necessary Area, Prices and Terms of Land 6 

The Cost of Getting- Started 7 

Irrigation is Not Hard Work 7 

Irrigating - Water Rights 8 

Hope and Experience 9 

Why Colorado is the Best 

Markets and Profits 10 

Products that Keep 11 

Recipe for Colorado Quality 

Geological History of Colorado Soil 12 

Continuous Bright Sunshine 13 

Cool Nights and Dry Air 14 

Giving Water Just as Needed 14 

Triumphs of Colorado Quality in Markets and in Competition 

Triumphs in the Markets 16 

Fruit Raising in Colorado — The Triumph of the Orchard Heaters 

The Orchard Heaters 18 

Colorado Fruit Belt 18 

Colorado Apples 19 

Market for Apples 19 

Colorado Peaches 20 

Pear Production 21 

Prune Growing 22 

Small Fruits 23 

Cantaloups and Tomatoes 24 

Live Stock in Colorado 

Alfalfa Bonanza 25 

Field Pea 25 

Colorado Hog Growing 27 

Public Range 27 

Sheep Growing and Feeding 29 

Growing Packing Interest 30 

General Farming in Colorado 

Alfalfa and Other Hays 30 

Sugar Beets 31 

Poultry Raising , 32 

Bee Keeping in Colorado 33 

Cabbage, Potatoes, Onions 34 

Fortunes for Dairymen in Colorado 34 

A Little of Everything .- 35 



Towns and Valleys in Colorado and New Mexico 

Particularly Described in this Book 



Page 

Alamosa 48 

Allison 58 

Animas Valley 56 

Antonito 54 

Antlers 84 

Arboles 58 

Archuleta County 57 

Arkansas-Platte Divide 35 

Arkansas Valley 35-36 

Austin 76 

Aztec, N. M 95 

Badito 37 

Bayfield 59 

Beaver Park 38 

Beulah 36 

Blanca 52 

Buena Vista 79 

Canon City 39 

Carbondale 81 

Cedaredge 76 

Center 50 

Clifton 89 

Collbran 87 

Colorado Springs 35 

Cortez 62 

Costilla Estate 53 

Crawford 74 

Crystal River Valley 81 

Debeque 87 

Del Norte 49 

Delta 70-74 

Divide Creek 85 

Dolores 62 

Douglas County 28 

Durango 56 

Eagle River Valley 79 

Eckert 76 

Espanola Valley, N. M 94 

Farmington, N. M 95 

Florence and Vicinity 40 

Fort Lewis Mesa 60 

Fountain Valley 35 

Fruita 91 

Glenwood Springs 84 

Garnet Mesa 75 

Grand Junction 89 

Granu Valley 82-85 

Gunnison Valley 82 

Gunnison Tunnel 82 

Hooper 51 

Hotchkiss 78 

Huerfano Valley 37 

Ignacio 58 

La Jara 54 

Larimer 37 



Page 

Lillylands 73 

Lebanon 63 

Loma 91 

Mack 92 

Maher 74 

Manassa 54 

Mancos 61 

Meeker 85 

Minturn 80 

Moffat 51 

Monte Vista 49 

Montezuma Valley 62 

Montrose 68 

Morrisania 85 

Mosca 51 

Naturita Valley 72 

New Castle 84 

North Fork Valley 77 

Norwood 72 

Nucla (Pifion) Colony 73 

Ojo Caliente, N. M 94 

Olathe 69 

Orchard Mesa 88 

Orlando 37 

Oxford 59 

Pagosa Springs 58 

Palisade 87 

Paonia 78 

Paradox Valley, West 73 

Payne Mesa 54 

Plateau Valley 87 

Pueblo and Vicinity 36 

Redlands 72-91 

Ridgway 70 

Rifle 8 6 

Roaring Fork Valley 81 

Romeo 54 

Rye 37 

Saguache 51 

Salida 51 

San Juan County, N. M 94-95 

San Luis Valley 42-47 

Santa Fe, N. M 93-94 

Silt 84 

Silverton 56 

Surface Creek 75 

Taos Valley, N. M 94 

Teller Ranch 36 

Tiffany 58 

Trinchera Estate 52 

Trinidad and Vicinity 37 

Uncompahgre Valley 68 

Wet Mountain Valley 41 

White River Valley 85 



BOX ELDER 




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ARIZONA 



MAP OF THE 

Denver & Rio Grande 
System 



Denver £^ Rio Grande Railroad 

DUGH THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 



CM6YENNE., 




ONTROSE ^«m P ,h 3 ra , c View 

/ .-. *-*>A RID6WAY 



Norwood. Da » & s Divide^ 
, T MIGUEL P 1 

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sacjuache© I °' ?, E\ 1 -| \> <j)SiWer Cliff !, 

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LAKEl CITY I V LuslLh i, i V Itr A' DMarnell 
Moffat % i v -- N !L«nmor ( 



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CuCHARA Jc. 




APR 29 1912 



List of Representatives of the Denver and 
Rio Grande Railroad 



BOSTON, MASS., 728 Old South Bldg. 

Percy Van Tassell Trav. Pass'r Agent 

J. F. Ryan Trav. Frt. Agent 

BUTTE, MONT., 56 E. Broadway. 

A. B. Ayers Trav. Pass'r Agent 

CHICAGO, ILL., 234 So. Clark St. 

F. C. Gifford General Agent 

C. J. Kays City Pass'r Agent 

Ralph J. Van Dyke. .. .Trav. Pass'r Agent 

H. E. Fairweather Trav. Frt. Agent 

Frank T. Lonergan Trav. Frt. Agent 

CLEVELAND, OHIO, 513 Williamson Bldg. 

W. E. Zirckel General Agent 

David M. Reynolds. ..Trav. F. & P. Agent 

CINCINNATI, OHIO, 409 Traction Bldg. 

J. E. Clark General Agent 

W. H. Bremer Trav. F. & P. Agent 

H. S. Roberts Trav. F. & P. Agent 

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO., 

123 E. Pikes Peak Ave. 

W. H. Cundey . . . Gen'l Agent Pass'r Dept. 
A. C. Wilson Com'l Frt. Agent 

DENVER, COLO., Albany Hotel. 

A. W. Parrott City Pass'r Agent 

A. McFarland City Ticket Agent 

S. C. Shearer Trav. Pass'r Agent 

DETROIT, MICH., 1323 Majestic Bldg. 

O. P. Applegate General Agent 

DURANGO, COLO. 

P. B. McAtee General Agent 

FORT WORTH, TEX., 405 Exchange Bldg. 
J. E. Woodfin General Agent 

FRESNO, CAL. 

T. F. Brosnahan Commercial Agent 

GRAND JUNCTION, COLO. 

W. B. Kenney General Agent 

KANSAS CITY, MO., 210 Scarritt Arcade. 

E. C. Roxbury General Agent 

G. C. Henderson. Trav. Fit. & Pass'r Agent 

LEADVILLE, COLO., 401 Harrison Ave. 

S. M. Brown General Agent 

LOS ANGELES, CAL., 532 So. Spring St. 

C. P. Ensign General Agent 

H. K. Campbell Passenger Agent 



MILWAUKEE, WIS., 816 Majestic Bldg. 

R. B. Robertson General Agent 

Frank L. Wolfe Trav. F. & P. Agent 

NEW YORK CITY N. Y., 1246 Broadway 

R. C. Nichol General Agent 

H. E. Tupper City Pass'r Agent 

E. Haring City Ticket Agent 

Eugene Lovenberg Trav. Pass'r Agent 

NEW YORK CITY, N. Y., 229 Broadway 

R. C. Nichol General Agent 

R. E. Law Trav. Frt. Agent 

OAKLAND, CAL., 1326 Broadway. 

W. B. Townsend. . Dist. Frt. & Pass'r Agt. 

OGDEN, UTAH, Reed Hotel. 

F. Fouts Agent 

OMAHA, NEB., 219 So. 14th St. 

F. L. Feakins General Agent 

H. G. Bock Trav. F. & P. Agent 

PITTSBURGH, PA., 602 Park Bldg. 

Jas. T. Neison General Agent 

Morris F. Walters Trav. F. & P. Agent 

J. W. O'Brien Trav. Pass'r Agent 

PORTLAND, ORE., 124 3rd St. 

W. C. McBride General Agent 

E. B. Duffy Trav. F. & P. Agent 

PUEBLO, COLO., Central Block, 2nd and 
Main Sts. 

J. D. Kenworthy A. G. F. & P. A. 

E. S. Card City Pass'r & Ticket Agent 

J. G. Eads Trav. F. & P. Agent 

ST. LOUIS, MO., 726 Pierce Bldg. 

J. E. Courtney General Agent 

John L. Hohl Trav. F. & P. Agent 

W. J. Foley Trav. F. & P. Agent 

SACRAMENTO, CAL., Cor. 10th and K Sts. 

J. C. Havely Dist. Jr. & P. Agent 

W. C. Dibblee.. .Asst. Dist. F. & P. Agent 

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, Judge Bldg. 
I. A. Benton. .. .Gen'l Agent Pass'r Dept. 
H. M. Cushing Trav. Pass'r Agent 

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., 665 Market St. 

J. G. Lowe Dist. Pass'r Agent 

R. V. Crowder City Ticket Agent 

W. H. Davenport. ..Gen. Agent Frt. Dept. 

SAN JOSE, CAL. 

J. Q. Patton .... Trav. Frt. & Pass'r Agent 

SANTA FE, N. M. 

W. D. Shea Trav. Frt. & Pass'r Agent 



FRANK A. WADLEIGH, 

General Passenger Agent, Denver, Colorado 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



017 064 756 7 




A PEW VARIETIES OF COLORADO FRUITS 



